Weird Politics

After J.D. Vance's “cat lady” comments surfaced, politics took another strange turn. America’s most accomplished hillbilly wasn't dumb enough to make the remarks after Trump selected him as his running mate, but they still hit a nerve in denigrating a swath of Americans. The backlash started with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz calling Vance and Trump “just weird," which caught on with his fellow Democrats. Kamala Harris issued a press release calling Trump “old and weird.” Her official Twitter account has used the word “weird” 14 times since July 23. Given Trump's sensitivity to criticism, plus his own personal insults, this name-calling isn't a bad diversionary tactic. And so far, it's been effective. Any time Trump and other GOP big shots spend on convincing the public they're not weirdos means less time to slag Harris, which is their main job until the November election.

Predictably, Republican attack dog Ben Shapiro spent much of his podcast on the following day fulminating about how weird Democrats are—his daily stock-in-trade. The podcast host set the tone for what was to become a sixth-grade playground, “I know you are but what am I,” defense.

There's no shortage of weirdness on the Democratic side of the aisle, starting with Joe Biden. Check out all the YouTube videos showing him getting handsy with pre-teen girls on stage with him, smelling their hair, and making them feel uncomfortable. And then there's his daughter Ashley’s stolen diary, in which she reveals showers with daddy. Biden's not the right guy to give out his favorite (both idiotic and inappropriate) dating advice to young girls he doesn't even know—”No serious guys until you're 30”—but he did it again just last week during the ceremony for the prisoners released from Russia.

As for Trump, who’s speculated publicly on dating his own daughter, he's undeniably weird, starting with his Vegas combover and spray tan. It takes skill to use makeup with a fake tan, but Trump doesn't have that skill. Consequently, he's the weirdest-looking president in modern history. But when he looks in his vanity mirror, he doesn't see the cartoonish look the rest of the world does. Harris, by contrast, looks fine. There's not a bad picture of her.

Soon after this “weird” issue popped up, the indignant former president went on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show and said, “Nobody’s ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not.” And nobody’s ever called him a serial liar, a molester, or a fraudster. Is it weird for a presidential candidate to say at one of his rallies, “The late great Hannibal Lector is a wonderful man”? Is it weird for a guy to brag about all the club championships he's won at his own golf clubs when he doesn't even show up for every round, and a whole book’s been written about his cheating on the links? Trump comports himself as a man-child unable to let even the pettiest of slights just slide, which at 78 is weird.

Kamala Harris is weird too, beginning with that disconcerting laugh that doesn't appear to be connected to anything humorous. It's like a massive facial tic, but Trump’s not getting much mileage out of mocking it, perhaps because of his own inability to even laugh like others do. Another Harris weirdness is the indecipherable sentences she's prone to. Here's one of her gems: “Culture is—it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And in present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment.” Huh?

Because Harris often sounds weird in impromptu settings, the public’s not going to see her answer many (any?) questions at all until after the election. It's an above-ground version of Biden's basement strategy in 2020. And while the media’s happy to curate the Harris record to make her seem less radical than her voting record and public statements indicate, they expect a quid pro quo. If she ducks them for too long, she runs the risk that they'll turn on her.

Trump Republicans are certainly weird when compared to the old-fashioned martini-drinking, country-clubbing Republicans, something that was on full display on January 6 in the nation’s capital. When a weirdo in a shaman suit lounging in Nancy Pelosi's office becomes one of the faces of the GOP, the times have changed. Ronald Reagan’s GOP is gone, and the isolationism, nationalism, and J.D. Vance natalism of Trump's party has brought weirdness with it.

Today’s Democrats are weird. Take a look at that “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call/struggle session that raised millions for the candidate. What a weird idea in the first place, and discriminatory too, because black “dudes” weren't even invited. Dividing the nation into hive-like constituencies has been the “new normal” since Obama put together his identity-based coalition in 2012. That's why we're forced to hear talk of “equity” shoehorned into any issue one can imagine. I wonder if the White Dudes for Harris realize that her obsession with equity wouldn't work out for them. If they do, they'll think they deserve it.

Despite the “weirdness” food fight, weirdness is hardly the deal-breaker it was when 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean let out the “Dean scream” that sunk his campaign. The media hyped an emotional attempt to fire up his crowd as “weird” with over 600 broadcasts of the moment. It wasn't even particularly weird, but that was it for Dean. Every single Trump rally is weirder than Dean’s yell, and now there's barely a ripple.

At least the Democrats calling Republicans weird gives us a temporary break from their incessant, panicked hand-wringing about how our democracy’s in peril. Democrat strategist James Carville weighed in, stating his preference for his party to call Republicans “creeps.” He gets that “weird” doesn't mean that much in current politics, saying that he's weird too. At the presidential level, this favors Harris. Her opponent has already stated his fondness for non-consensual fondling, he's linked to Jeffrey Epstein, and a court ruled that he must pay $83 million to E. Jean Carroll for “sexual abuse” and defamation. “Trump is a weird creep” wouldn't be a bad slogan for the Democrats to float.