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The "weird" attack angle works so well precisely because it is something Republicans think of as an attack but that lots of people wouldn't. Lots of leftists, democrats, and others would, as you note, be happy to describe themselves as weird. Not Republicans though. They are the party of The Adults In The Room. The party of Serious People. The Normals. If Republicans had enough self reflection to acknowledge or joke about their own weirdness the attack would lose all of its power. Same thing for the couch meme about Vance.
...would they? Still, in 2024? Rebellion used to be a cardinal virtue of the American left in decades past, but not so much anymore. They've rebranded as the faction of moral propriety. Less free love, more #MeToo.
Is it really "weird" to be gay or trans now? Is that how the left wants to frame it?
At the very least, calling yourself "weird" while also calling your political archenemies "weird" has to incur some serious cognitive dissonance.
Hae you heard of the word "queer"?
But thats a totally different word! At least it is now.
Besides, does anyone self describe as "queer" these days? It seems like an old fashioned word now, that only makes sense as an umbrella term for all non-straight sexualities.
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Those are the pastel people who police transgression, yes?
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This is the Democrats. Or at least their publicly presented image.
It's both, depending on context. Republicans consider themselves the adults in the room in the sense that they think they are the ones willing to do the messy business of doing what needs to be done to keep this country going strong, and being true to traditional morals rather than what they consider to be frivolous and immature lifestyles on the left. Democrats consider themselves the adults in the room because they think Trump is utterly insane, and they think they are the only ones willing to stand up to his brand of insanity and act like grown-ups.
From my point of view neither is really the adults in the room, but that's what they seem to think of themselves at any rate.
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But I'm not sure whose vote your getting with the attack though. Is the game making republicans mad so they lash out? In my mind the undecideds are more likely to be offended by the trend than to internalize that republicans are weird and thus not worth voting for because I don't think weird works as an insult for the outsider looking in. It's just too tepid.
I think a big part of it is provoking a Republican reaction. Since weird is such a low-valence insult, if it even is one, it's unlikely to influence people either way. I think partly it's also cathartic for a lot of Democrats who have thought Republicans are weird for a long time but have felt forced into this framing where they have to treat Republicans like they're normal.
Your alternative theory is that Walz is praising what a maverick and iconoclast Trump is?
"Weird" used to be something we could rely on the (American, at least) left defending, sure. All hail the outlaws, Spielbergs and Kubricks! Keep Austin Weird! We just commemorated the 25th anniversary of "The Weird Al Show" with the release of "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"! "Queer" has been reclaimed as a term of pride!
Seeing how many people are eager to throw that attitude away now that the left is on top is a gross, Orwellian, "Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others" betrayal. It's throwing every actually-weird kid out there under the bus just to score a few political points. I used to think that seeing Animal Farm as a universal story made me a big cynical skeptic, unsurprised at how movements will throw away their support for the little people after they get solidly entrenched in power, but I'm still dumbfounded at watching people throw away principles as a way to push their polling lead above 2%.
I hope it's a flash-in-the-pan meme, not true newly-bipartisan support for anti-weirdness. Imagine how much harder it's going to be to dissuade bullying in the future if it becomes clear that so many victims weren't upset because they were righteous, they were just upset because they were envious.
I haven't been this disappointed since I discovered how many fellows on the anti-censoring-Communists left weren't strongly anti-censorship but rather just pro-censorship and pro-Communism.
I've seen this perspective a few times in other places and I'm skeptical. To my perception none of the people needling Republicans by calling them weird are using it in a derogatory way towards other groups often labeled weird (LGBT people, leftists, etc). To me the attack seems tactically deployed at Republicans due to their susceptibility to it as I articulated above. "Weird" is not itself bad, but calling Republicans weird is funny due to their insistence that they aren't. The reaction they have is the point. Not being derogatory to people who are weird in a general way.
Reddit atheists ended up being weirdos par excellence. (Even the Latinx ones.) I hear plenty about "cis gays" too.
Somebody'll manage if it's convenient.
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“They don’t mean it that way they mean it some other way” seems like just another rationalization to me.
Whether it’s something about “historical context” or “power dynamics” or “punching up” seems there’s always a reason X thing that was bad is now ok, actually, once it’s useful.
The same cohort that opposes “fat shaming” will mock Chris Christie. The same cohort that opposes “kink shaming” will mock even a fake story about a horny teenager and a couch. One minute we’re holding hands praising diversity and other life experiences the next we’re mocking the illiterate southern red necks.
It’s too many epicycles for me to follow—isn’t “they don’t mean what they say and will say anything to score a point” much simpler?
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It doesn't work that way. You cannot have your VP candidate call his opponents weird and creepy and engage in a coordinated campaign to label the opponent as weird and expect that to have zero effect on the valence of that word, especially on normies who don't get that you mean "people I don't like are weird which is gross, but actually weird people who are fine," a statement which doesn't even make sense on the face of it. And it definitely lights the entire concept of trying to fight bullying against weird kids on fire because impressionable youth won't hear anything except "weird is bad, the Vice President told me so."
I think you are just an asshole who is willing to burn the commons if it means you get to piss off your outgroup. As they say, the cruelty is point.
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I can see that. I keep thinking about undecideds and middle America I completely forgot that most people simply don't vote and democrats have a bigger base.
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