Does Weird Work?

The benefits, and pitfalls, of Democrats' new favorite word

Kamala Harris and Democrats have doubled down on “weird.”

On Tuesday morning, the Harris campaign announced their long-awaited vice presidential candidate: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a black horse in the veepstakes who overtook frontrunners with a late-breaking media blitz and his plain-spoken, Midwestern manner. While Walz was a personal favorite of mine, he’s not who I thought Harris would pick as her running mate. The geographic benefits of Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro, would, I thought, outweigh his policy deficiencies. But in the end, the Harris campaign went with the underdog, projecting confidence in their electoral prospects and a commitment to a “happy warrior” framing of Harris’ candidacy.

The rollout of Walz has been close-to-perfect for the Harris campaign, unveiling him as the pick on social media before the pair appeared at a campaign rally in Philadelphia later that day, speaking to a crowd of around 14,000 supporters. There, Harris introduced her running mate, laying out his personal story and painting him as a Midwestern “man of the people” who coached football, taught social science, and served in the military. Repeatedly referring to him as “Coach Walz,” Harris seemed intent upon striking a balance between her coastal, Californian, polished persona and her running mate. That whole event — including Walz’s JD Vance couch joke — is here:

Ultimately, reporting tells us that Harris picked Walz because of their interpersonal connection: Walz allegedly nailed his interview with Harris and her vetting team, while Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly left them wanting more. Interestingly, Walz also reportedly claimed that he did not harbor any desire for the top job, making the case that his vice presidency would be in service to Harris rather than any personal presidential ambitions. For a party that has a history of nominating vice presidents (every Democratic vice president since Lyndon B. Johnson has been a presidential nominee at some point), having a lame-duck vice president would clear the 2028 or 2032 presidential field, allowing the talented crop of Democratic politicians who have risen to prominence in the Trump era to get their moment in the spotlight.

But the reason Walz was even in contention for the VP slot in the first place was his branding of Republicans as “weird.” It’s a word that has lit up social media, allowing Democrats to paint Trump’s at-times incoherent ramblings or JD Vance’s stilted public appearances in a new light. It’s been surprisingly effective, akin to the relief that comes with pointing out the elephant in the room; for years, Democrats have skirted around the sense, the feeling, the reality, that some of these Republicans are just plain “weird.”

I’m a fan of the term, so it surprised me when, this week, several of my friends whom I adore pushed back on the word, worried that it was another in a series of Democratic messaging blunders. What I saw as political genius, they saw as dangerous, ineffective, and potentially galvanizing for the other side.

It’s shades of Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” back in 2016. Then, when Clinton demonized half of Trump’s supporters as “… racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it…” she received swift backlash. It was viewed as elitist, a reputation that Clinton already struggled with as the Broadway-loving, Yale Law-attending New Yorker she was. And it was decried as both obtusely generalistic and woefully unbecoming of a presidential candidate seeking to serve all Americans. While “basket deplorables” was a far cry from the insults Trump lobbed during the 2016 campaign, Clinton was forced to apologize, and her words followed her through the rest of the campaign.

Clinton’s “deplorables” comment caught fire with Trump supporters, as they both criticized her comments and reclaimed the term as a badge of honor. To be a “deplorable” was to be looked down upon by the elites. It was to be part of the “forgotten men and women of this country,” a favorite term of Trump’s with allusions to Nixon’s “Silent Majority.”

For Nixon, the “Silent Majority” was the large, moderate middle of American politics. They were voters largely opposed to the Vietnam War protests, nonparticipatory in the growing counterculture, and hailing from “Middle America.” Essentially, the “Silent Majority” were people we would problematically deem the “real” America today, with all of the racial, socioeconomic, and gendered connotations that come along with it. And the term has been updated in the Trump era, now encompassing an anti-PC culture, efforts at “owning the libs,” and a faux-victim mentality that encompasses so much of conservative media nowadays.

In so many ways, the “deplorables” comment played into the driving conceit behind Trump’s candidacy: a bullhorn for “normal,” “real” American values that were looked down upon by oat milk-drinking, MSNBC-watching, liberal city slickers. Even Trump’s campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” — suggests a return, a homecoming to an America that those “real Americans” can recognize. In short, for all the think pieces that call Trump’s rise “not normal,” for his supporters, what Trump offers is a proud defense of “normal” — or, at least, their conventional, white, straight, Christian version of it.

So what does calling them “weird” really accomplish? Is it another “basket of deplorables” comment or Mitt Romney’s “47 percent?” Will Trump and his supporters wrap themselves in “weird,” proudly deeming themselves “against the grain?” Is it too nebulous of a term, reclaimed in our contemporary moment, to mean “authentic” or “independent?” After all, we love to “Keep Austin weird,” and people rallied behind “Weird Barbie” in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster film.

That seems to be the fear, and I understand it. It’s an insult, it’s mudslinging politics, it’s a polysemous word, and it’s very different from Clinton or Biden’s high-minded defenses of democracy and decency. And there are rumblings of Republicans reusing the term to their advantage, as Vance hit back on the attack yesterday on the campaign trail:

But even Vance’s response serves as a defense of his “normalcy.” The Trump/Vance ticket seemingly has no effective response to the “weird” allegations precisely because the things we associate with “weird” in the cultural zeitgeist are the polar opposite of how Trump and Trump fans see themselves. To be “against the grain,” “authentic,” or to “walk to the beat of your own drum” are things we deem “weird” and things we primarily associate with liberalism. To be “weird” is to be marginalized, and by and large, the marginalized people in this country are Democrats. The things that make Austin “weird” are all the things Trump fans stand against, extending even to the celebration of the word itself.

And it is for this reason I see Trumpites proudly proclaiming themselves as “weird” as unlikely. Yes, they see themselves as victims, but they see themselves as victims at the hands of the “weirdos.” For years, the dichotomy in American politics has been that Republicans represent “real” — i.e., “normal” — America, while Democrats represent some kind of un-American, coastal, elitist vision — or, in other words, “weird.”

Thus, the genius of Walz’s charge is that it turns this dichotomy on its head, painting Republicans with the same brush they’ve been painting Democrats with for years. It feels like a breath of fresh air because it’s a tonal shift for Democrats, flipping the script on Republicans and portraying them as overreaching, power-hungry, nosey “weirdos.” It may backfire: Democratic messaging often, frustratingly does. But this “weird” thing seems to have taken off and serves as a simple, effective, and amusing way of disarming Trump and his supporters. And Republicans, long branded as champions of “normal America,” cannot effectively repurpose the term to their advantage.

In that way, “weird” works.