Weird Sisters

Are doing it for themselves

First Witch: Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch: Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch: Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

—Macbeth

Weird has become the bon mot of the US Presidential election, a linguistic weapon accidentally plucked from the lake of tired political vocabulary and now being wielded with fierce aplomb by the Harris campaign against the Orange manbaby.

The word has succeeded against the formerly invincible Trump campaign in ways that more obvious descriptors such as fascist, anti-democratic, white supremacist, misogynist and even rapist haven’t quite been able to achieve. It cuts through their defences like Excalibur and its deployment has Team Trump running around like headless chooks.

This piece in that beacon of journalistic “normality”, USA Today, sets out precisely what weird is describing and why it is effective:

The rise of Trumpism and the bizarre chaos it ushered in ‒ from family members lost down conspiratorial rabbit holes to the denial of…