Being Called ‘Weird’ Is Only Making Republicans Weirder

Democrats have thrown eight years of “when they go low, we go high” to the wind and are all in on calling their birth rate-obsessed, 4Chan-dwelling opponents “weird.” Republicans are not coping well.

By Kylie Cheung  |  July 30, 2024 | 1:49pm
Photo: Getty Images Politics
Being Called ‘Weird’ Is Only Making Republicans Weirder

Republicans are weird. There’s no reason in the world for anyone to know this much about the birth rate, or for anyone to write bill after bill about children’s genitals and school locker rooms. And after years of terrorizing the populace with their policymaking rooted in this fundamental weirdness, it turns out the GOP really doesn’t like being called “weird.” But first, let’s rewind to how we got here.

There’s been something of a political vibe shift since President Joe Biden stepped down from his reelection bid and passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. A big part of that vibe shift has been her campaign’s willingness to embrace the absurd and get a little silly with it (ie. Kamala HQ’s brat-styled header image). Enter Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), a frontrunner in Harris’ veepstakes and, as of last week, a rising progressive darling. On MSNBC, Walz read the Republican Party’s whole thing for filth: “These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” he said. “That’s what it comes down to. And don’t, you know, get sugarcoating this. These are weird ideas.” He’s only doubled down, quote-tweeting clips of Trump speeches, “Say it with me: Weird.” 

The Harris campaign has since adopted this ethos, particularly zooming in on GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s obsession with “childless” people: “JD Vance is weird,” reads one Friday press release from the campaign, which then quotes Vance’s offensive conspiracy theory from 2021 that overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to Democratic donors flying out “Black women to get them to go have abortions in California.”

Meanwhile Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D)—another veepstakes contestant—has gone all in on some of the most absurd, weird-coded headlines about Vance: “There are a lot of weird, strange things coming out of both the Republican nominee and the vice-presidential nominee … Donald Trump’s fear of sharks … talk about couches and dolphins,” he said in a Monday press conference. On the “White Dudes for Harris” call (which, lol) that same evening, Pritzker concluded by telling attendees he’d next see them on the “Couches Against Trump” Zoom. In other words, Democrats seem to have thrown eight years of “when they go low, we go high” to the wind—Republicans are weird and it’s time to tell voters this.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has tried to “I know you are but what am I???” his party out of this mess, sharing a five-year-old opinion column about Harris from a right-wing writer who alleged Harris avoided eye contact with junior staffers: “This is… weird,” Cruz wrote. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has responded to the “weird” attack by invoking a pitiful personal anecdote: “They called us weird so I’ll call them weirder. That’s what I used to do back in high school,” he told reporters on Tuesday. Vance, too, recently shared a video of Harris, gasp!, sharing her pronouns, tweeting, “JD Vance is weird.” As anyone with an elementary grasp of how the internet works would’ve predicted, Twitter users seized on his tweet, and screenshots of Vance tweeting “JD Vance is weird” are currently making a killing on the website. 

Then, there’s far-right commentator Matt Walsh, who had nothing substantive to say in the face of Democrats’ new, highly salient “weird” attack line, so instead, he tweeted a lengthy screed about trans people and children’s genitalia on Monday. If he recited this to any ordinary person on the street outside of his right-wing echo chamber, they’d surely grab their kids and run. Similarly, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who’s been under federal investigation for allegedly trafficking a teen, also responded to weirdogate with a bizarre reference to people’s genitals: “The party of gender blockers and drag shows for kids is calling us weird? Ok.”

Fox News’ Jesse Watters, who’s very pissed at his people being called “weird,” was in rare form on Monday night, ostensibly defending Vance from the couch-fucker allegations by displaying hilarious meme after hilarious meme, and then telling Vance’s bullies, “You better have video.” Well done, Jesse—that’ll surely quash the weird allegations: demanding to see J.D. Vance couch porn.

“This whole ‘they’re weird’ argument from the Democrats is dumb & juvenile,” weirdo and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted on Sunday night. “This is a presidential election, not a high school prom queen contest. It’s also a tad ironic coming from the party that preaches ‘diversity & inclusion.’ Win on policy if you can, but cut the crap please.” (Ramaswamy’s tweet was notably ratioed by the viral menswear guy replying with a photo zooming in on Ramaswamy’s ill-fitting shoes.) Couple things: First, this is about policy—Republicans’ policies are fucking weird. Second: It didn’t help Ramamswamy’s case that 24 hours after demanding that Democrats stop calling his party weird, he tweeted a lengthy essay about the birth rate that included the words “1.62 births per woman.” Weird!

Conservative author and influencer Helen Andrews also chimed in on Monday to tweet, “Calling people ‘weird’ is such feminine behavior. Textbook sex difference: Men engage in open conflict; women police conformity. It’s honestly disorienting to hear male politicians use the line.” In response to Andrew’s, err, thoughts, one person pointed out, “These people can’t even argue against being weird without engaging in some of the absolutely weirdest rhetoric I’ve ever seen in my life.” I, again, have to wonder if conservatives think they can win this election—or the culture war more broadly—by responding to weird allegations with rants that include the words “textbook sex difference.” Honestly, if a few ordinary, patriotic Americans were to host some drag brunches or library story hours in major cities across the country for the next few months, it’s possible that GOP candidates get so angry that they just forget to campaign.

Meanwhile, Vance tried to deny that his “feelings” were hurt by being called weird or by trending alongside some of the weirdest headlines ever known to the English-speaking world for a week straight. But this isn’t actually about his feelings—it’s about winning the election in November, and Vance has record-breaking, almost shockingly low approval ratings.

Sure, some of this is pretty silly. But it’s all rooted in a political truth: It’s fucking weird to be this obsessed with making people have babies, policing children’s genitals, cracking down on LGBTQ identity, trying to ban porn—all while large swaths of the population are childless, queer, and unabashedly horny, as is their right. The internet was only so willing to accept the dolphin and couch memes about Vance because his publicly stated views about sex are all weird, too. That seems to be why conservatives are so pissed—because there’s no real defense from the gaping truth of their own deep disconnection from polite society.

 
Join the discussion...