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Republicans are not weird [1]

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Date: 2024-07-29  

Some of our best campaigners seem to have latched onto the word “weird”, to describe the Repubulicans, and their presidential and vice-presidential candidates in particular. The general media consensus seems to be that it’s working: they hate it, and the undecideds are perhaps being swayed by it.

At first, I objected because the word isn’t strong enough. Let’s face it; it’s inaccurate. Harris’s opponents are sick, disgusting, sociopaths. Creepy could work. I understand that she and her colleagues are defanging the Republican extremists, you might say, by taking away the language that makes them sound dangerous, because that language makes them also sound strong — a macho racist white guy’s idea of what we need running the country. To at least some degree, it plays into their hands.

Kamala Harris is very smart, and like most of the country I am very excited to see her as president. And not only in lieu of the alternative; she appears to be competent, capable and caring. We need her.

When I was quite young, someone called me “queer”, and I asked my mother what it meant. She said it meant “oddball”. Which doesn’t really sound that bad to me. The fact is that Americans used the word “queer” as a degrading insult for gay people. And then the Queer community reclaimed it; it’s now okay to be different from the gender mainstream, at least for most of us.

I think most of my friends are pretty weird, as in outside the mainstream. None of them are creepy, racist, hateful psychopaths. I think it is with some justification that I worry this “weird” word could backfire on those of us who are disabled, trans, overweight, loudly vocal, introverted or otherwise not seen as "normal". These are the people whom we are supposed to be defending against the abuses of the hateful.

I can almost see myself saying of the Democrats, whatever works, do it. We clearly cannot afford another term of incompetence, fascism, and hatred. And it’s possible President Harris might turn out to be the best President in my lifetime (which includes JFK, Carter, Obama, and obviously Biden). But there is a part of me that wants us to think ahead, too, and to question the rhetorical toxification of otherness. To those of us who’ve ever been bullied, those weirdos are our people and we must stand with them.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/29/2259233/-Republicans-are-not-weird?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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