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Politics | US Politics
Some Republicans Are Weird
And why we should be talking about that
Has anyone noticed how strange many Republicans have become? We often read about the crazy things they’ve done or bizarre beliefs they hold. Usually, those aspects are considered ‘threatening,’ or ‘dangerous,’ lighting a fire within us to protect ourselves from their insanity.
Though many of us may have pondered to ourselves how someone could do and believe all those wacky things, rarely do we consider how weird they truly are. Except, apparently, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz.
Earlier in 2024, he began referencing the rightest-of-the-hard-right Republicans as “weird.” Now that he may be Kamala’s running mate soon, this habit has spread. Some call it a tactic — which it is, but it’s also more than that. Seeing these hate-filled types in the light of their “weirdness” is a revolutionary perspective. One that warrants a closer look.
“Weird” is considered a childish word by some, though it’s widely used by the common person countrywide. Everyone understands what weird means — and it’s by far, less aggressive than labeling people idiots or criminals. Nobody thinks of weird people as a threat in general. They could be, but that elevates weird to something else like creepy or psycho. Weird is just the right temperature to stay light on the insulting side.
And it also effectively waters down the power of those on the other side.
It’s harder to take a weird person seriously. Our minds detach a little bit from anything deemed “weird,” a protective response to differentness. We are social creatures, depending on a society to survive — anything considered “weird” is by definition outside society. And therefore, “weird” becomes one of the most psychologically challenging insults of all. Especially to those who have never been called that before.
