Kamala Harris allies deploy new Trump attack line: he is 'just plain weird'
Source: The Guardian
Sun 28 Jul 2024 13.41 EDT
US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.
In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”. “I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.
The Harris campaign, working to redefine the race with particular attention to the youth vote, including colorizing online HarrisHQ banners lime green after Charli xcx’s “brat” endorsement, has sought to draw attention to Trump’s rally storytelling. Particularly, they have highlighted his frequent but references to fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs fame as well as the choice between being shocked by a sinking electric boat or being eaten by a shark. But “weird” is what seems to be sticking, in part as an apparent simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses – which dominated 15 months of Biden’s re-election campaign.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/28/kamala-harris-trump-weird
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's like the political strategists often say - "If you have to explain it, then you are losing" (in this case, try to defend oneself from the label). 
Welcome to DU!
Play their game and get tough and a little mean:
He is 'just a narcissistic psychopath'. (has a nice rhythm to it when used as a chant)
He is 'just a self-serving egomaniac'.
He is 'just a wannabe autocrat'.
He is 'simply anti-American'.
He has been a 'serial liar all his life'.
Let's remind ourselves often this the man that called Hillary Clinton a nasty woman and labeled all Democrats every ornery name in the book including Nazis.
while normalizing the idea that actual convicted criminals are "okay" and can run for President.
Using "creepy" or "weird" or "odd", suddenly compresses the media-fed GOP crazy-world into a distinct bubble that is now labeled as being outside of societal norms, and the rest of us are merely observers, pointing and commenting on the strange behavior going on within that bubble.
And this explains why - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3280911
Anything else can be spun. Maybe by lying, but still spun.
Weird is subjective. It’s a vibe. There’s no real good way to fight back once you’ve got that label stuck to you because there’s no logic or factual claim to argue against.
It’s actually a lot like conservatives calling liberals “elitist”.
It's easy to dismiss what is basically a noun (calling someone "a (disparaging) name", which is objective). But a "feeling" (as an adjective), is more difficult to tackle as it is subjective and trying to argue why you're "not weird" means "you are explaining", and as the strategists caution - "If you have to 'explain' then you 'are losing'".
And interestingly enough, someone in his odd circle seemed to realize this, which caused him to suddenly pivot and call her "evil" after calling her "a lunatic".
