"Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it

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"Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it
salon.com

After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade

Sure, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy — a would-be dictator on day one who has called for terminating the U.S. Constitution so he can hold onto power even after losing a free and fair election. But while draped in the rhetoric of populism, Trump and his MAGA movement are not actually popular; the man himself has never won more votes than the person he ran against, a majority of Americans twice rejecting him and his off-putting cult of personality. That he was ever president is more or less because a few thousand swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania thought it would be fun.

President Joe Biden won in 2020 largely by promising to a return to normalcy and baseline competency. In 2024, Democrats are making a similar argument but more forcibly: They’re pointing, laughing and dismissing Trump and his circus as a total freak show to which we can’t return.

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ok, i'm eating crow now, for criticizing the "he's weird" strategy. #happyiwaswrong

they really are mentally 5 years old

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different.” -Donald Trump https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/opinions/president-trump-six-year-old-with-nuclear-weapons-dantonio/index.html

Omg... I hadn't heard of this before. Parody dies in the wake of Trumps giant fucking stupid diapered ass

That's why I added the link. I thought anyone reading who wasn't already familiar with the quote would just assume it was a joke, I know I would.

It makes sense. You can't reason with it, you can't use descriptive accurate language because they might not understand, or fail to understand why it applies to them.

Weird - to them - means "non-conforming" and that is a terrible, terrible thing for a conservative.

More than just non-conforming generally too. They super quickly embraced that non-conformist image when it came to the masks.

But it feels like just calling them weird triggers a primal fear within them that they're not really part of the "in-group" after all. It works where other insults don't because they can't easily write it off as their enemies simply being jealous of how cool they are basically.

I think it is really, really effective when women are calling Republican men creepy weirdos. I don't know if it would work to have Biden call the likes of MTG and Bobo creepy weirdos (even though it's obviously true), though.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/question-keeping-trump-loving-men-night-why-won-t-women-ncna1273594

I think I just saw a viral type post pushed on reddit r/TwoXChromosomes with the subject of, paraphrasing "If you support Project 2025 by voting for donnie, I'm cutting you out of my life. No exceptions."