The effectiveness of "weird" , unlike "deplorables" (accurate but politically ill-judged) doesn't rely on applying it to Trump's white christian base, but rather to Trump and Vance personally. The effect of cultural change is that the charge can't be turned back on liberals for being gay, trans etc. in the way it would have been 20 or 30 years ago.
But "weird" has done its work now. Dems should move to "creepy" (even more specifically appropriate) and then, if possible to "disgusting". Disgust is the key motivator for rightwing voters, and needs to be turned against Trump in particular
Depends who it is applied to, I think. Clinton applied hers to Turmp supporters; the Democrats need to be careful they apply it to Trump, his family and his team - and his policies, come to think of it - but not his supporters. Voters don't like being told anything negative about themselves, and tend not to support insults directed towards other voters, even those they don't agree with.
Thanks for this Tim, it's a really interesting take. I've been thinking about "weird" all week. When Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters 'deplorable', she was painted as villain - the bully - in the same way as people who call out racism - think Marcia Langton during the Voice referendum - are criticised for calling out racism. The reason for this is that those with power - white people being racist towards black people as one example - will not tolerate those with less power holding them to account. They won't accept people challenging their authority. Same thing happens when women call out sexism, and even when women make allegations of rape. Look at how many men rushed to make Brittany Higgins the villain and Bruce Lehrmann the victim/hero. It is a form of weaponised victimhood. Weird, on the other hand, is a way to challenge power by taking the mickey out of it. Nothing destroys political capital as quickly as mockery. Remember when Tony Abbott put the nail in his political coffin by announcing he was bringing back knights and dames? He became a laughing stock and could not regain his political credibility/authority. I think (hope) this is what is happening with MAGAs being called "weird". No one wants to be the weird kid because the weird kid is shunned, the weird kid has no power! MAGAs only support Trump because he makes them feel powerful (legitimising their racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry etc.) You strip him of the power to give them power and they will go away quietly - again I hope!
Thanks, Victoria. The "reverse racism" is interesting bc it has been quite an effective retort. That seems to be part of their problem here: they don't have a comeback to "weird", as that clip of Trump suggests. Still, I guess "reverse racism" took some time to develop. Also reminds me of sanctions against, say, Sth Africa: economic sanctions were one thing, but when you say, "we won't play sport with you", some other level of hurt kicks in, I think.
The GOTV is always a huge question in the US. Suspect Dems, particularly women, are motivated. Wonder how motivated Trump's crowd is given the work he has done on convincing them the system is rigged against them. Why would they bother rather than just "trust" him to win anyway. Might turn out to be a huge own-goal...?
"revered by the Republican Party's evangelical base"
- as a side-quibble [followed by a ramble], may I put to you that the Republican Party, the GOP, no longer exists in either a philosophical sense nor as a functional entity. What has subsumed it, in all but branding, is the POT: Party of Trump. The recent RNC is evidence enough that the Grand Old Party has succumbed to the American Gothic adaptation of the Night of the Long Knives, the GöP purge (if you will), with not only all positions being Trump-apportioned, but a number of those positions going to Trump relatives.
And as to that base,
"A precipitous decline in the number of Americans identifying as white evangelical was revealed in Public Religion Research Institute’s 2020 Census on American Religion. In 2006, almost a quarter of the American population identified as white evangelical, but only 14.5% the population does so today."
- Terry Shoemaker, ASU, The Conversation, 4th Aug 2021.
From a media whose lifebuoy is clickbait*, a clickbait defined as hyperbolising social disharmony, the MAGAs have been drip-fed a self-satisfying confection of moral but also numerical superiority**. What is unfortunately more reliable, however, is the Harvard and Northeastern universities report, published in 2017, that estimates that of the 265 million privately owned firearms in the US, about half are owned by 3% of the US adult population. And while about half of gun owners own one or two guns, 8% of gun owners own 10 or more – a figure that amounts to about 40% of the total US gun stock, according to the report.
The majority being held by rural white males in the US South, Midwest and West, men with a relatively low educational achievement, and who (across the US) identify as Republican (44% GOP to 20% Dem, for those with a declared Party affiliation). And between 33-41%, overall, are Evangelicals.
Lied to by a media that they don't trust but still feed off, prepped by Trump & the POT not to accept adverse election results [or, indeed, any facts that they find inconvenient in the moment], this gaslighting sets the stage for a reaction greater than that of the January 6th 2021 assault on the US Capitol, should a 'DEI cheat' beat the 'new Christ' in November.
(* an infantilising practice by all Western legacy media, esp. in the US and in Australia);
(** the MAGAs have also been given their targets of displeasure by the same legacy media should their entitled expectations, as defined by said legacy media, not be met).
Thanks for the links and putting some meat on the bones of my response to Wayne. As ever, getting out the vote will be crucial, but yeah, I wonder what happens then?
Any indication of what prep is being taken to guard against another Jan 6?
yes 'weird' is definitely like kryptonite was to Superman, the one thing he was totally vulnerable to. There was a tweet out late last week with an Ai generated Trump on a fat midget body wearing a superman suit, and it asked people to put their adjectives in the replies which would be comparable to what kryptonite was to Superman. When I saw how powerfully 'weird' was eroding Trump's impenetrable self-delusional tough-guy persona, I wondered whether the word was picked up from that thread.
thank you for that link, yes it has definitely been cooking for awhile about how the right are mutating into a strange imploding distortion of power that has gone wrong.
The TNR article got me thinking about bizarre vs weird. One's a bit fancier, good with a French accent. But weird has a fantastic, earthy 'mouth feel', especially with an American accent. You can roll the "r" round in your mouth, stretch it out beyond one syllable. A most excellent word! (PS hooray for Staffo's mates.)
Disgusting will not have the same effect as weird I suspect because it does not have the roots that Tim identified Creepy does sort of have that same ring to it if a change were deemed necessary but at the moment,Weird is a very useful,powerful word for us sisters as it is light hearted mockery and can’t be turned around like déplorables was.👍🏼
Yes, the struggle with the retort is a really interesting aspect. I guess it is hard to counter because there is a vagueness with "weird" that escapes being pinned down.
Great piece, Tim! The weird is definitely eating into the Republican campaign like acid, and this is the best explanation I've read.
Love the etymology snippet too: "Wyrd is a noun formed from the Old English verb weorþan, meaning 'to come to pass, to become'." Learning Dutch is demonstrating to me just how bound the ancestries of the two languages are. "Worden" is the Dutch verb "to become", past tense "werd" and "werden". Word nerd Margaret felt compelled to tell you that.
A thought-provoking read Tim. It remains to be seen whether the word will continue to penetrate as it has this last week. So far, it has been applied to all the right things: Trump, his team, his family, his shtick, his policies. But if it were applied to his supporters, how would voters in the US react, I wonder? That's what Hillary tried to do, and it backfired spectacularly.
Tim, I found little reality in this read. Trump is definitely a buffoon with no business acumen, he went broke running a casino! He is unfit to run a team of street sweepers let alone the white house.
Don't you think it's more than a little weird that from a population of 380 million citizens, Trump and Biden are the best the establishment in the USA can offer up to run the world on their behalf. This bastion of democracy that exports its form of democracy anywhere on the globe, whenever a people elect a government not of the standard required by the US State Department. As in Venezuela today & ever since 2002, Ukraine in 2014, Libya in 2011, Palestine in 2006, Nicaragua in 1985, El Salvadore in 1979, Chile in 1973 and on and on it goes.
I think it's more than weird that the democrats hid the fact that the leader of the western world has been failing mentally for quite a while. Who was actually running the show for the past three and a half years? Biden was incapable of surviving the primaries, so the democrats cancelled them. When Biden proved incapable of walking to a rostrum, or off a stage, couldn't remember his lines or read a teleprompter, the cabal that runs the democrats offered up Kamala Harris to the American people.
Your quote from USA Today charges Trumpism with introducing among other things, "the denial of facts and abandonment of shared reality." Have you had a listen to Matthew Miller informing the world, from the US State Department lecturn any time during the past ten months, John Kirby from the White House Lecturn, or Anthony Blinken from anywhere? Trump certainly told bare faced lies and was never one to be concerned with facts, Biden and those surrounding and advising him have perfected that art.
I think it's weird that the democrats call themselves progressives and that is accepted as fact.
I think it's reprehensible for anyone to advocate for either of the major parties in the USA or Australia. They all wish to support the military industrial complex supplying the war in Ukraine, right down to the last Ukrainian.
In East Asia, once again, so long as there's a profit to be made, destabilising the region and supporting the ongoing genocide in Palestine is warranted. The Imperial power of the mighty USA is sacred.
When I was a lot younger, a very common placcard seen at demonstrations across South America stated clearly and succinctly
YANKEE GO HOME
I think it's weird that we don't see more of that.
Yeah, I don't think I would read it as an endorsement of the entire American system, just because the Harris campaign has had some success with this approach.
You don't have to go past his hair and makeup to know the man is f*cking WEIRD! I will never, never understand how an imbecile who can't string a coherent sentence together ever came to this level of power. Let alone the criminal, psychopathic and sociopathic evidence he presents in almost everything he says and does.
Agree, but it is the nature of populism that certain weirdos can transcend such shortcomings because they simultaneously manage to fulfil some other function, meet some other need, for people. The interesting thing here is that the word "weirdo" used in this way seems to have broken that spell somewhat. But yeah, like, how did it take them so long to realise?
It is a shame that proper debate of policies is no longer possible in a post-truth political world. Now you have to appeal to people's gut feelings instead of their intellect.
The effectiveness of "weird" , unlike "deplorables" (accurate but politically ill-judged) doesn't rely on applying it to Trump's white christian base, but rather to Trump and Vance personally. The effect of cultural change is that the charge can't be turned back on liberals for being gay, trans etc. in the way it would have been 20 or 30 years ago.
But "weird" has done its work now. Dems should move to "creepy" (even more specifically appropriate) and then, if possible to "disgusting". Disgust is the key motivator for rightwing voters, and needs to be turned against Trump in particular
"Disgusting" risks the same kind of backlash as Clinton's "deplorables" remark.
Weirrd and creepy will do fine.
Depends who it is applied to, I think. Clinton applied hers to Turmp supporters; the Democrats need to be careful they apply it to Trump, his family and his team - and his policies, come to think of it - but not his supporters. Voters don't like being told anything negative about themselves, and tend not to support insults directed towards other voters, even those they don't agree with.
Yes, I think John and you are right about this.
I like the declension, weird, creepy, disgusting.
I suspect, as Dave says, that the word "disgusting" is problematic, but agree about cultivating the sentiment.
Thinking about the McCarthy/Jospeh Welch thing about "Have you no sense of decency?" too.
Thanks for this Tim, it's a really interesting take. I've been thinking about "weird" all week. When Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters 'deplorable', she was painted as villain - the bully - in the same way as people who call out racism - think Marcia Langton during the Voice referendum - are criticised for calling out racism. The reason for this is that those with power - white people being racist towards black people as one example - will not tolerate those with less power holding them to account. They won't accept people challenging their authority. Same thing happens when women call out sexism, and even when women make allegations of rape. Look at how many men rushed to make Brittany Higgins the villain and Bruce Lehrmann the victim/hero. It is a form of weaponised victimhood. Weird, on the other hand, is a way to challenge power by taking the mickey out of it. Nothing destroys political capital as quickly as mockery. Remember when Tony Abbott put the nail in his political coffin by announcing he was bringing back knights and dames? He became a laughing stock and could not regain his political credibility/authority. I think (hope) this is what is happening with MAGAs being called "weird". No one wants to be the weird kid because the weird kid is shunned, the weird kid has no power! MAGAs only support Trump because he makes them feel powerful (legitimising their racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry etc.) You strip him of the power to give them power and they will go away quietly - again I hope!
I suspect they won't go quietly. It will be with loud shrieks about how they aren't weird at all, no, no, no.
Thanks, Victoria. The "reverse racism" is interesting bc it has been quite an effective retort. That seems to be part of their problem here: they don't have a comeback to "weird", as that clip of Trump suggests. Still, I guess "reverse racism" took some time to develop. Also reminds me of sanctions against, say, Sth Africa: economic sanctions were one thing, but when you say, "we won't play sport with you", some other level of hurt kicks in, I think.
Terrific article.
To use Obama's slogan, all this in the past week or so brings "Hope".
The question is, can the Democrats keep the momentum going? There is bound to be more twists and turns ahead (Nikki Haley to replace J.D.Vance???).
Also, more importantly, will people get out and vote?!
The GOTV is always a huge question in the US. Suspect Dems, particularly women, are motivated. Wonder how motivated Trump's crowd is given the work he has done on convincing them the system is rigged against them. Why would they bother rather than just "trust" him to win anyway. Might turn out to be a huge own-goal...?
Good one Tim, thank you.
"revered by the Republican Party's evangelical base"
- as a side-quibble [followed by a ramble], may I put to you that the Republican Party, the GOP, no longer exists in either a philosophical sense nor as a functional entity. What has subsumed it, in all but branding, is the POT: Party of Trump. The recent RNC is evidence enough that the Grand Old Party has succumbed to the American Gothic adaptation of the Night of the Long Knives, the GöP purge (if you will), with not only all positions being Trump-apportioned, but a number of those positions going to Trump relatives.
And as to that base,
"A precipitous decline in the number of Americans identifying as white evangelical was revealed in Public Religion Research Institute’s 2020 Census on American Religion. In 2006, almost a quarter of the American population identified as white evangelical, but only 14.5% the population does so today."
- Terry Shoemaker, ASU, The Conversation, 4th Aug 2021.
From a media whose lifebuoy is clickbait*, a clickbait defined as hyperbolising social disharmony, the MAGAs have been drip-fed a self-satisfying confection of moral but also numerical superiority**. What is unfortunately more reliable, however, is the Harvard and Northeastern universities report, published in 2017, that estimates that of the 265 million privately owned firearms in the US, about half are owned by 3% of the US adult population. And while about half of gun owners own one or two guns, 8% of gun owners own 10 or more – a figure that amounts to about 40% of the total US gun stock, according to the report.
The majority being held by rural white males in the US South, Midwest and West, men with a relatively low educational achievement, and who (across the US) identify as Republican (44% GOP to 20% Dem, for those with a declared Party affiliation). And between 33-41%, overall, are Evangelicals.
Lied to by a media that they don't trust but still feed off, prepped by Trump & the POT not to accept adverse election results [or, indeed, any facts that they find inconvenient in the moment], this gaslighting sets the stage for a reaction greater than that of the January 6th 2021 assault on the US Capitol, should a 'DEI cheat' beat the 'new Christ' in November.
- https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/02/us/gun-ownership-numbers-us-cec/index.html
- https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/
- https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/5/27/23144900/which-people-of-faith-are-the-most-likely-to-own-guns-mormons-evangelicals-protestants/
(* an infantilising practice by all Western legacy media, esp. in the US and in Australia);
(** the MAGAs have also been given their targets of displeasure by the same legacy media should their entitled expectations, as defined by said legacy media, not be met).
Thanks for the links and putting some meat on the bones of my response to Wayne. As ever, getting out the vote will be crucial, but yeah, I wonder what happens then?
Any indication of what prep is being taken to guard against another Jan 6?
yes 'weird' is definitely like kryptonite was to Superman, the one thing he was totally vulnerable to. There was a tweet out late last week with an Ai generated Trump on a fat midget body wearing a superman suit, and it asked people to put their adjectives in the replies which would be comparable to what kryptonite was to Superman. When I saw how powerfully 'weird' was eroding Trump's impenetrable self-delusional tough-guy persona, I wondered whether the word was picked up from that thread.
Possibly, but I also thought it originated with Minnesota Governer Tim Walz. But who knows why he used it. Interesting, as my friend Andrew Stafford pointed out, there is this 2022 TNR article: https://newrepublic.com/article/169050/masters-vance-weird-right-republicans
thank you for that link, yes it has definitely been cooking for awhile about how the right are mutating into a strange imploding distortion of power that has gone wrong.
The TNR article got me thinking about bizarre vs weird. One's a bit fancier, good with a French accent. But weird has a fantastic, earthy 'mouth feel', especially with an American accent. You can roll the "r" round in your mouth, stretch it out beyond one syllable. A most excellent word! (PS hooray for Staffo's mates.)
So happy and I’m sure Dutton will respond to this word in a similar way Weird sisters is exactly what was needed Thank you 👻
Disgusting will not have the same effect as weird I suspect because it does not have the roots that Tim identified Creepy does sort of have that same ring to it if a change were deemed necessary but at the moment,Weird is a very useful,powerful word for us sisters as it is light hearted mockery and can’t be turned around like déplorables was.👍🏼
Definitely agree!
Yes, the struggle with the retort is a really interesting aspect. I guess it is hard to counter because there is a vagueness with "weird" that escapes being pinned down.
Great piece, Tim! The weird is definitely eating into the Republican campaign like acid, and this is the best explanation I've read.
Love the etymology snippet too: "Wyrd is a noun formed from the Old English verb weorþan, meaning 'to come to pass, to become'." Learning Dutch is demonstrating to me just how bound the ancestries of the two languages are. "Worden" is the Dutch verb "to become", past tense "werd" and "werden". Word nerd Margaret felt compelled to tell you that.
Oh, wow, isn't that great! Language is such a repository, our secrets (and connections) revealed.
You sure you don't mean "suppository", Tim (channelling the ever-so-weird Tones, here)
A thought-provoking read Tim. It remains to be seen whether the word will continue to penetrate as it has this last week. So far, it has been applied to all the right things: Trump, his team, his family, his shtick, his policies. But if it were applied to his supporters, how would voters in the US react, I wonder? That's what Hillary tried to do, and it backfired spectacularly.
Yes, the magic has to wear off eventually you would think. Bring on the election!
Tim, I found little reality in this read. Trump is definitely a buffoon with no business acumen, he went broke running a casino! He is unfit to run a team of street sweepers let alone the white house.
Don't you think it's more than a little weird that from a population of 380 million citizens, Trump and Biden are the best the establishment in the USA can offer up to run the world on their behalf. This bastion of democracy that exports its form of democracy anywhere on the globe, whenever a people elect a government not of the standard required by the US State Department. As in Venezuela today & ever since 2002, Ukraine in 2014, Libya in 2011, Palestine in 2006, Nicaragua in 1985, El Salvadore in 1979, Chile in 1973 and on and on it goes.
I think it's more than weird that the democrats hid the fact that the leader of the western world has been failing mentally for quite a while. Who was actually running the show for the past three and a half years? Biden was incapable of surviving the primaries, so the democrats cancelled them. When Biden proved incapable of walking to a rostrum, or off a stage, couldn't remember his lines or read a teleprompter, the cabal that runs the democrats offered up Kamala Harris to the American people.
Your quote from USA Today charges Trumpism with introducing among other things, "the denial of facts and abandonment of shared reality." Have you had a listen to Matthew Miller informing the world, from the US State Department lecturn any time during the past ten months, John Kirby from the White House Lecturn, or Anthony Blinken from anywhere? Trump certainly told bare faced lies and was never one to be concerned with facts, Biden and those surrounding and advising him have perfected that art.
I think it's weird that the democrats call themselves progressives and that is accepted as fact.
I think it's reprehensible for anyone to advocate for either of the major parties in the USA or Australia. They all wish to support the military industrial complex supplying the war in Ukraine, right down to the last Ukrainian.
In East Asia, once again, so long as there's a profit to be made, destabilising the region and supporting the ongoing genocide in Palestine is warranted. The Imperial power of the mighty USA is sacred.
When I was a lot younger, a very common placcard seen at demonstrations across South America stated clearly and succinctly
YANKEE GO HOME
I think it's weird that we don't see more of that.
Yeah, I don't think I would read it as an endorsement of the entire American system, just because the Harris campaign has had some success with this approach.
Kamala Harris dropped Medicare for all among other things she'd previously sworn to.
I heard one commentator today sing Kama Kama Kama Chameleon
You don't have to go past his hair and makeup to know the man is f*cking WEIRD! I will never, never understand how an imbecile who can't string a coherent sentence together ever came to this level of power. Let alone the criminal, psychopathic and sociopathic evidence he presents in almost everything he says and does.
Agree, but it is the nature of populism that certain weirdos can transcend such shortcomings because they simultaneously manage to fulfil some other function, meet some other need, for people. The interesting thing here is that the word "weirdo" used in this way seems to have broken that spell somewhat. But yeah, like, how did it take them so long to realise?
It is a shame that proper debate of policies is no longer possible in a post-truth political world. Now you have to appeal to people's gut feelings instead of their intellect.
Thanks Tim. Bringing a little joy to US political commentary - I gurgled like a drain at this. I love Kamala's witchy belly laugh!