Member-only story
POLITICS
The Maga Movement Has A Weirdness Problem
Has the Trump cult finally gotten too bizarre for the American public?
“No one has ever gone broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American public.” — HL Mencken
You never know what seemingly insignificant thing will become the defining issue in a political campaign. Some gaffe or insight that changes the trajectory of the race. An embarrassment or a moment of inspiration that changes the public’s perception of a candidate. Howard Dean’s excitable shriek. Bush’s thousand points of light. Dan Quayle’s spelling bee. Reagan’s morning in America. Sarah Palin’s view of Russia from her front porch. Obama’s Chicago hope.
Democrats have long struggled with how best to position Donald Trump and his Maga faithful, alternatively calling them deplorable, deranged, unhinged, dangerous, authoritarian, fascist, hateful, frightened, and delusional. I’ve been party to calling them all that and more. However, it has remained that two sides are calling each other names, and no one else is paying that much attention.
Today, I read an interesting piece in Politico titled, “How Trump and Vance went from a ‘threat to democracy’ to ‘weird.’” A look at how the Democratic machine might have found a new, subtle strategy for attacking the GOP. From potential VP candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to Democratic strategist Martha McKenna, liberals seem to be coalescing around a simple rephrasing of the race. That Trump, Vance, and their entire stable of sycophants, while violent, dangerous, and unAmerican, are also just plain weird.
“It’s the first word that came to mind when I saw the white bandages on the ears of delegates at the RNC,” explained McKenna. “That’s weird.”¹
“It perfectly describes the uneasiness people feel. It’s how people who don’t live and breathe politics every day react to hearing the Republican vice presidential candidate denigrate people without children,” said Tim Hogan, a Democratic strategist who worked on the 2020 presidential campaign of another Minnesotan, Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “It’s simple. It’s how you might talk to your neighbor about the crazy political…
