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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Most people probably identify as weird in some way when they're probably not weird at all but since it's not really a pejorative and was in fact celebratory in most cases before this sudden shift. Hell, most of these people probably worship Weird Al and their favorite Radiohead song is Creep, hey there's another better word than weird.

This is partly its virtue, it's quite dismissive in how non-extreme it is. Up until now Trump and Vance has seemed to many Democrats a terrifying spectre – there'll be mass deportations, women will have their freedoms taken away, people without children will be paraded naked down main street and pelted with diapers. It's felt pretty nasty. By merely calling it weird, they have found a way of sublimating their fear. They are giving 'bemused', and happy to just ignore Trump and Vance.

OP also says the couch fucking thing is particularly humiliating but I don't know if it is. It's pretty tame because it's acknowledged to be factually false (it would be much much harsher tactic if they were actually spreading falsehoods, like birther rhetoric for instance). It's being mean but in a knowingly silly schoolyard kind of way that helps Dems finally start to conquer their fear of Trump.

Me, I don't find it funny at all, but I can see it has a certain power.