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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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