After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade
Sure, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy — a would-be dictator on day one who has called for terminating the U.S. Constitution so he can hold onto power even after losing a free and fair election. But while draped in the rhetoric of populism, Trump and his MAGA movement are not actually popular; the man himself has never won more votes than the person he ran against, a majority of Americans twice rejecting him and his off-putting cult of personality. That he was ever president is more or less because a few thousand swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania thought it would be fun.
President Joe Biden won in 2020 largely by promising to a return to normalcy and baseline competency. In 2024, Democrats are making a similar argument but more forcibly: They’re pointing, laughing and dismissing Trump and his circus as a total freak show to which we can’t return.
I find it quite strange that “old and weird” seems to work better than “corrupt and criminal”.
Probably for 2 reasons:
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quote “all politicians are corrupt and criminal” so this tactic doesn’t land (look at the dem senator from NJ)
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few people know convicted felons but they do know “old and weird” people, so they can better draw personal parallels
I think the “weird” attribution has a way of infecting his supporters as well.
If you support a criminal, that doesn’t necessarily make you a criminal. If you support a corrupt politician, that doesn’t make you a corrupt politician.
But if you support somebody weird? Well that makes you weird. Trump’s weirdness infects you. It’s the cheese touch of politics.
For a decade now there has been a certain crowd who considers Trump’s criminality and general disregard for truth to be cool in a “gangster” way. Gangsters are leaders.
Weirdos, not so much.
Some were weirdos but they were the creative types of weirdos, not old pervert and couch fucker type of weirdos.
I feel old for remembering the cheese touch… that book was out in elementary school
It’s also a plausible way out. Someone can convince themself that Trump was not as old and weird 10 years ago, so they did not make a mistake voting for him then
(look at the dem sensor from NJ)
The one that we’re forcing out, yes. Not as fast as we got rid of Anthony Weiner, but they’re out.
The worst Dems have at the federal level might be Pelosi making stock trades. You know, like half of congress, but for some reason only she (rightly) gets attention for it. Maybe we should include more people than just Pelosi in that conversation.
Yeah, the nj guy is getting replaced with andy kim who is infinitely better.
Yes, that’s probably how it is - pretty sad tho.
A decent number of people also know people who got railroaded into bullshit legal problems.
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I think it’s because for so long they’ve relied on Democrats/people on the left (I say that because it’s not just in the US, it’s become the right-wing tactic all over the place) being serious and arguing in good faith, IE: they’ll just say the wildest shit that’s blatantly untrue, and people on the left tend to bust out the facts and links to long explanations of why that’s false, and they just counter it with more nonsense until their opponents get tired and quit, then they proclaim victory. But if you just go “you’re weird, fuck you” and then refuse to follow up on it they kind of don’t know what to do with it.
Also, the amount it’s pissing them off means it’s working, everyone keep doing it!
arguing in good faith [edit:
faithwas originally missing. That’s what I get for Lemmy on the toilet-ing]I specifically remember Trevor Noah having an opening monologue to the Daily Show some time just prior to or after Trump having taken office about this exact topic. Essentially he was saying it allowed Trump to control the narrative. Every time he lied, the left leaning media would be off digging up facts and statistics to come back and says “ah ha ya! Look at this!” But by the time they get back to respond, he’s gone off and changed the topic and made another blatantly false condemnation of some group of people. And so the cycle repeats itself.
Noah’s proposed solution was the same as a child having a tantrum: ignore them. When things go wrong, make it clear why it’s a result of his policies or rhetoric. Stop playing politics like you’re playing them with a competent adult. You’re not.
Yeah it’s a bit like dealing with the school bully I think. They want to make people flustered and upset because it makes them feel big and gets them attention. But if you give them even a little bit of their own medicine they can’t handle it at all.
Hmm, I wonder if commenting that in that strange Lemmy place c/conservative would have the same effect lmao
Ugh, what a weird and creepy place that is
But if you just go “you’re weird, fuck you” and then refuse to follow up on it they kind of don’t know what to do with it.
Well, if it were that easy, the right would’ve been beaten a long time ago. If Kamala ever gets a chance to debate Trump (spoiler: he will never debate her) she isn’t going to just respond to everything he says with some variation of “you’re weird; fuck you”.
It’s because it’s a fascist movement.
Fascism is organized around a strong leader who supposedly embodies the values of the movement. A fascist leader isn’t a leader who’s thoughtful and fair, they’re strong, determined, filled with righteous anger, etc.
Corrupt and criminal can be twisted into those characteristics. It’s not “corruption”, it’s taking advantage of suckers. Something you have to be clever and ruthless to do. It’s not “criminal”, it’s ignoring laws meant for lesser people.
On the other hand, a fascist leader’s image isn’t compatible with weakness and strangeness. Fascism is all about claiming the national identity is under threat by “others”, immigrants, intellectuals, homosexuals, etc. The fascist leader needs to be seen to embody all that’s good and right about the true national spirit. But, if they’re seen as weak and weird, that’s not something anybody wants to associate with.
To add to that I’d like to quote Ian Danskin (aka Inuendo Studios) from his guest lecture about Gamergate at UC Merced:
Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”
People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.
Great quote. It explains why they’re especially sensitive to the idea that their position is not normal.
exactly. In the next paragraph Ian even has some examples of how that works in modern day American conservative political culture:
Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.
This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.
This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.
Honestly the whole talk is worth a listen. It’s depressing because, well, it’s about gamergate but it explains so much (and it’s probably one of the parts of his alt right playbook series of video essays getting shared the least on social media
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think on the left there’s more acceptance for being weird. In fact, I think that’s one of the things the left fights for: the freedom to not be normal. If you’re not hurting anybody, then nobody should care what you do.
This is probably what has led to the MAGA people being so deeply weird. The right is used to their neighbours policing them and keeping them from drifting too far from normal. The left generally doesn’t care too much about normal. So, when the MAGA movement made the Republican base so weird, their neighbours were caught up in it, so they weren’t criticizing the drift away from normal. The democrats didn’t really care so much about the lack of “normality”, but were instead focused on all the actual bad shit, like refusing to confirm Supreme Court justices, banning muslims from entering the US, etc. So, now pointing out how far from normal they’ve drifted is really having an effect.
You have to love the irony of the far right considering themselves the “silent” anything.
Its really fascinating. Their image is to embody what is “normal”, “natural”, “right”. They’re bullies, claiming they’re better than everyone else, and using those differences to push that superiority.
It turns out the most effective method to combat bullies is to… bully them. Point out how abormal, unnatural, and inferior they are. Its such a core element of their existence that they fall apart without it.
I’m not proud of it. But also, I’m not crying about it.
It’s not even necessarily bullying them back, it’s more refusing to be bullied.
Beating up a bully can be an effective strategy, but it’s risky, you might lose the fight. And, since it’s a fight they want it’s one they probably think they can win.
Laughing at a bully is attacking them where they’re weak. It’s defusing the fight by making people not want to back them, and by doing that making them want to retreat.
I see it more as calling out that the emperor wears no clothes. Don’t play by their rules. Expose the farce!
The media have been complicit in this. Treating Trump like a serious candidate helped him win the election.
It was creepy how many times they said the words “strong” and “strength” during the Republican convention. They worship strength. Might makes right.
i think corrupt and criminal works in messaging toward independents; old and weird works against republicans.
Yeah, the whole thing about a coup attempt and trying to overthrow our democracy wasn’t landing… but “old and weird” is somehow catching on?
I think at least some of it is because republicans already call democrats corrupt and criminal. When the dems come back and make the same accusations it just looks like bickering. Ideally the substance of such claims would matter but current political discourse in the US prioritizes sound bites and quips
And they’re not even being real about it.
“You know there’s something wrong with people when they talk about freedom — freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read,” Walz said. “That stuff is weird. They come across as weird. They seem obsessed with this.”
And buttigieg: “Republicans, including Fox News anchors, “will take a look at Donald Trump and say he’s perfectly fine, even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi; even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter; even though he’s clearly older and stranger than he was when America got to know him,” Buttigieg said. “They say he’s strong as an ox, leaps tall buildings in a single bound. We don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side.”
I actually felt a strange sort of relief when I opened this article and saw the headline. But after reading it…that’s it? Why can’t they come out and talk like real-ass people? We get it, you’re professional politicians that are soooo smart. But level with people, for fucks sake.
Just in the middle of a typical dem speech, even if it’s scripted, go “off script” like:
[…]and…I mean. Maybe this isn’t ‘proper,’ but forget proper for a minute…what the hell is wrong with trump? And Vance, for that matter. Why are we all pretending this is normal? That what they say and do is normal? These aren’t normal people. They’re…weird. Really weird. And frankly—they’re just hateful assholes. We can’t let these freaks have any real power again. We remember last time, right? It was horrifying for a lot of people. Good people were being threatened for who they are. Forget that. We can’t let these weird, sad wannabe fascists take power. Give a wannabe fascist any power, and they’re not “wannabe” anymore. They can just be fascists. And with this corrupt Supreme Court? We would be in deep shit. I get it, we outside of the freak show that is the far right, have our differences. Those to the left of us don’t think we do enough. Those to the right of us think we do too much. But, no matter what, we aren’t those freaks. And right now, that is the most important thing. Keeping wannabe dictators and bonafide weirdos away from the adult’s table. We want to do more for everyone. And keeping trump and Vance and all of the equally strange and hateful Republican grifters and con artists will allow us to do more. So…let’s try to keep this asylum from falling to the inmates.
Democrats have just decided that “decorum” and appearances are still somehow the way to go. Be fuckin real with people. Don’t give us the form letter politician shit. That is obviously where we’re at as a country. The sooner they learn that the better chance they’ll have.
We need David Tenant to go on some social media platform and say to the world, “Doesn’t Ex-President Trump look tired?”
The whole schtick the right wing is selling is trying to claim that they are the normal Americans.
When you point out that it is weird as hell to worship a reality TV star while wearing diapers and fake ear bandages, they are forced to look in a mirror and realize that actually, no, they are not the normal ones.
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The reason it works is because there is no refuting it other than, “Nah uh!” It’s almost the equivalent to repeating someone’s argument back to them in a tone to sound stupid. HOWEVER, this tactic works when arguing with a kindergartner, so it works here too.
It’s also a primal fear for narcissistic men to be called ‘weird’ or ‘creepy’ by attractive women.
Actually narcissistic people don’t care about that, because narcissistic people aren’t sexually attracted to anyone. Narcissus rejected everyone who made moves on him. That’s why, at 16, he was put to death by the gods for not loving anyone.
Narcissism is not a sexual orientation. You can be a narcissistic asexual. But being a narcissist does not mean you dont experience sexual attraction in the colloquial form of the word.
I think they read the story of Narcissis and assumed that narcissism is a one to one translation of meaning.
Not that I’m an expert but sexuality is independent. Also, narcissists understand power dynamics and need to be on the top in every regard.
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amazingly confident in incorrectness.
Narcissus wasn’t put to death. His own self-absorption killed him.
Some one, therefore, who had been despised by him, lifting up his hands towards heaven, said, “Thus, though he should love, let him not enjoy what he loves!” Rhamnusia74 assented to a prayer so reasonable. There was a clear spring, like silver, with its unsullied waters, which neither shepherds, nor she-goats feeding on the mountains, nor any other cattle, had touched; which neither bird nor wild beast had disturbed, nor bough falling from a tree. There was grass around it, which the neighboring water nourished, and a wood, that suffered the stream to become warm with no rays of the sun. Here the youth, fatigued both with the labor of hunting and the 104 III. 413-445 heat, lay down, attracted by the appearance of the spot, and the spring; and, while he was endeavoring to quench his thirst, another thirst grew upon him.
Rhamnusia made him fall in love with his reflection. It’s right there in the text.
Like others here, I gotta say it’s super weird that this comment is focused on Narcissus the character’s specific death rather than the actual disorder. It’s like getting caught up on Oedipus’s platonic relationships. The disorder references the character but does not demand that every detail of the story is relevant.
NPD is diagnostically defined in the DSM-5 (APA 2013; pages 669-672) as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, with interpersonal entitlement, exploitiveness, arrogance, and envy. Five out of nine of these criteria need to be present to meet the diagnosis of NPD.
(The nine can be found online from many sources. None mentions sexuality.)
There’s good reading on sexual selfishness or sexually addictive behavior from narcissists. One from the American Journal of Psychiatry, emphasis mine:
In addition to the grandiose and vulnerable subtypes, there is a healthier group of individuals with narcissistic personality disorder, described as “high-functioning,” “exhibitionistic,” or “autonomous.” These individuals, illustrated by Mr. A, are grandiose, competitive, attention seeking, and sexually provocative, while demonstrating adaptive functioning and using their narcissistic traits to succeed.
For a more contemporary comparison, it’s like seeing the trope of the Starscream and insisting that for the archetype to fit, they must be disintegrated by the guy they backstabbed reborn and renamed. The disorder is named after the self obsessive behavior, not the less important particulars.
Naming an ego disorder after Narcissus is ridiculous. The boy’s core character trait was his lack of interest in relationships with other people. The self-obsession isn’t his character trait, it’s a punishment inflicted on him by the gods. It would be better to call it Nemesism. Nemesis is the god who inflicted the self-obsession. If you’re talking about Narcissus, the asexuality is why he was killed. The asexuality is the trait the Greeks saw as evil.
I mean maybe, but I assume that by the time it was named, people mainly remembered the staring at oneself until death thing. The story is old enough that it’s been simplified many times, I’ve heard it more without the curse bit than with. The authors aren’t really around to correct the record.
I’m curious, were you more familiar with the particulars of the story than the actual disorder, and just applied it? I’m confused about the point of the orignal comment. It feels like you’re more interested in Greek myths than the actual discussion that was happening.
Which is fine— there’s a place for that, even if that wasn’t the way to introduce the subject. I’d have been (and really, still am) interested in other not-entirely-faithful myth inspired names. But by beginning with an inaccurate take on the contemporary term narcissist, it mostly just led to confusion.
I was extending the benefit of the doubt. If we’re all speaking Greek, and disagree on whether Trump is asexual, well that’s a very weird conversation to have but it could result without malice. However, if someone is throwing around ableist slurs and saying Trump’s evil is the result of neurodivergence, then they deserve to be punched in the face.
I guess I just don’t see the relevance of sexuality when no one uses “narcissist” to indicate that. Seems like a complete non sequitur and didn’t yield any results?
Get out of my brain.
I was literally just wondering why it’s so effective and I think it’s this.
Most liberal “insults” are draped in facts and figures, to the point that Republicans just close their ears and say AlTeRnAtIvE fAcTs.
I think the simplicity, and it’s fact-less insult cuts through their reasoning brains (which there wasn’t much of) and hits them in the emotional centers.
I mean…it took Democrats 6 years to figure this out?
Better late than never but happy we’re finally hitting below the belt.
Democrats finally learn how stupid undecided voters are
Democrats need to meet people where they are. Most people want to be manipulated and told what to think and do.
Honestly, that’s how are brains are wired. The group is more important than the truth.
There is no reasoning, it’s just emotion and identity. This hits both.
That might be part of it, but the Republicans tried a similar attack against Biden and it mostly didn’t land. It only works when it’s true in the sense that the average person genuinely finds the position or behavior in question disturbing.
queue up the Faith No More song Kindergarten
Eggs. They’re not weird.
Laughter is a great weapon, as even the Irish Bards of old knew. And the plus point is that it is true, they are old and weird. They want to go round inspecting children’s genitals…definitely weird. They rather mothers die than get medical treatment in an event of a dangerous pregnancy. Likewise, they think child marriages are OK. They think forcing women to have babies is OK but passing laws to help those babies live is not. They want to go back in time and roll back all the progress society has made in being kinder, fairer and more inclusive. They love conspiracies and think they have special secret knowledge . There is so much more,I hope someone turns it all into a catchy song that goes viral.
There’s two sides to that.
Some of them are like tucker Carlson or Boris Johnson. They look ridiculous on purpose so that’s what people talk about instead of the horrendous shit they’re advocating for.
So by all means laugh at them, it hurts their follower count. But don’t outright dismiss them.
They might be stupid and weird that doesn’t make them less dangerous
I think the point is that they are all old, weird, and dangerous. Vance isn’t old, but he is weird and dangerous.
And let’s be clear, this is a different kind of weird. I’m weird, but I’m weird because I like kids shows, make bad jokes, and pick at my fingernails.
They’re weird because they like to fuck kids and underage teens (a surprisingly large portion, anyway), make decisions that hurt the people they want giving them money and support, and want to pick which immigrants are the “bad” ones.
I’d call them weird like you would the ultra fundamentalist Christian old guys that go to college campuses and yell at people. It’s not weird in a good way. It’s just fucking strange. Like something is legitimately wrong with them.
Oh, they are dangerous alright because they consider themselves righteous and having God and “Tradition” on their side. People who consider themselves righteous have no doubts that everything the do ,regardless how vicious, is meant to be by God. So all logic goes out the window. I think not all are like that, but they are a huge useful pool of people who can be used and manipulated with ease. Just like a cult, none of the decisions their leaders make are questioned.
Boris really mastered that technique. That hair of his.
All of the creepy weirdos in the donnie cinematic universe are just so vile and disgusting and so ripe for mockery. Let’s see: Bannon, Stone, Gorka, Miller… (and many more I’m forgetting right now) all of them are freaks that no normal person would want to associate with. All of them have designs on America and Americans that are just creepy.
They’re lucky that the worst thing they’ve been pinned with so far is “this dude looks like he’d fuck a sofa” when most of these people look like they’d happily make a lamp out of you if they liked your pores.
I hope they go far beyond the couch fuckin’. All of those creepy weirdos around donnie, and that boost donnie, and many that vote for donnie, have very, very creepy and weird ideas about what they want to do to other Americans. They have a very creepy and weird idea of what America stands for - they want an Xtian Caliphate here in America. The couch fuckin’ isn’t even close to the worst of it - what JD did or does in the privacy of his own home with his furniture is no business of mine (even if it it’s hilarious).
I hate that cushion pushin’ is the only thing that seems to be sticking though. It’s like everyone is saying, “corrupt and criminal” should be enough to disqualify them all forever, but it’s not landing. The only thing that has landed so far is the much less important “this guy looks like he’d seduce the futon” and it’s a fascinating example of the counterintuitive nature of psychology. People are apparently fine with a racist, sexist, criminal dictator as long as he doesn’t sex the sectional, but it just goes to show that while everyone thinks they’re rational beings, every decision - and I do mean every decision - is an emotional one. If it weren’t the case, then surely “fomented an insurrection at the Capitol building” would bear a lot more weight than “misinterpreted the loveseat”.
Don’t forget the Mooch!
Its nice reading someone else see’s things the same
The thing is, the Republicans have wanted all of those things for the last four decades and have passed numerous laws and while it is good to see people catching on, what the hell took so long?
Finding just the right language, I guess. Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” was too mean. Republicans can be as mean as they want, but Democrats can’t, and a woman definitely can’t. “Weird” gets the point across without being too mean.
It’s a bullshit game, but there it is.
Yep. Watching the Republican cult of personality be exposed this way has given me genuine hope for the future.
It’s been ten years since that freak started remaking the Republican party in his own image. Ten years since his face and voice started dominating the news cycle for no good reason (and lots of bad ones). Ten years of his clown show.
But now, at long last, I have hope that it will finally end. That the name “Donald Trump” will fade from our political vocabulary, and be spoken in shame and disgust when spoken at all.
That the name “Donald Trump” will fade from our political vocabulary, and be spoken in shame and disgust when spoken at all.
Don’t forget the part where all the Republicans pretend they never really supported him in the first place.
Yep. I look forward to that day, but we need to remind them of the truth when they try to pull that.
Just like the origins of the “tea party”, just like how they called themselves “teabaggers” (no matter how much they insist now that it never happened), just like they swooned over both W and Romney, but pretended they “didn’t know her” when W’s war on Iraq was obvious to even the lowest of low-info that it was a clusterfuck, and when Romney lost to the Blah guy.
Yep. Gonna be big “I was part of the civilian resistance” post-WW2 vibes in the aftermath of all this.
I’m prepared to remind every smug boomer I know until the day they die, and I relish in the opportunity.
The Republican Party eagerly embraced him. They wanted this.
This needs to be repeated over and over. Remind everyone when Trump is gone. He isn’t the threat people, he is a threat.
The seeds of his “movement” were planted by 4chan and other terminally online far right trolls long before he ever took the reins. It’s been brewing since the mid-to-late-2000s but was mostly contained to their own corners of the net. Until one day it wasn’t. Some people recognized it as just controversial bigoted/racist humor (such as the “Hitler did nothing wrong”-flavored Mountain Dew), others took it seriously and turned it into a lifestyle, and gave birth to the alt right.
It’s the political manifestation of every troll board you’ve ever heard of, 4chan, 8chan, somethingawful, etc. I’m a 'chan veteran myself, I saw it all start.
My impression is that Something Awful was largely filled by people who saw the problems with 4chan “humor” and wanted nothing to do with it. But I could be misremembering.
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When reactionaries tell you to stop something it’s because it is effective.
If they cry and foam at the mouth you should go even harder.
They’re a minority of weirdos and should be reminded of such at every opportunity.
I might even go as far as calling them dumb.
Republicans are so old… and just soo weird.
And trump doesn’t laugh or have a dog?
There’s a lot of other very bad things going on, but they are also just… They’re just so fucking weird?
I like to also add “gross” to Trump and Vance’s descriptions. Really helps to complete the picture in my mind.
Eh, adds to it but there are so many words you are missing for completion here.
They both have a real “would you fuck me? I’d fuck me” vibe.
“Gross” seems a lot more fitting than “weird”. But what do I know? I’m not a political strategist.
Does he have a cat? If you have the resources to have people take care of all the minor annoyances of having a loving furry friend (dog or cat) that you can call your own and still simply choose not to - you are fucking weird.
He doesn’t like animals. Remember when he was almost eaten by a bald eagle? And he’s strangely phobic of sharks.
Doesn’t like animals, doesn’t drink due to dead alcoholic brother (Fair enough.), only eats fast food due to a fear of poisoning
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38651623
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-loves-mcdonalds-afraid-of-being-poisoned-2018-1
Doesn’t exercise because he thinks people are powered by batteries
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/politics/donald-trump-exercise/index.html
TbF, the science on exercise is pretty limited at best. Nobody seems to agree if it’s a good or a bad idea. There’s lots of open room for speculation on this. 🙄 It’s really just like that argument the dems tried to make about cigarettes being bad for you or there not being dragons at the edge of the earth.
There’s no argument on whether exercise is good for you, it unequivocally is. Exactly how much you really need, and what kinds, and what specific benefits it has are somewhat debated, but the mere fact of it being beneficial is not in question.
Is wooosh a thing on lemmy yet?
I’m gonna do my own research and get back to you
It’s only as proven as the leftist theory that you shouldn’t smoke cigars.
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only eats fast food due to a fear of poisoning
That’s like wearing a suit of armor during a thunderstorm because you’re afraid of being hit by lightning.
Breath of the Wild taught me this is a bad idea.
Animals are good judges of character. No wonder they hate him.
I did not know about the eagle bit but I think that’s a bit poetic. It didn’t actually get him on the nose, did it? Because that would just be too many metaphors.
Trump eats his steak well done with ketchup.
That sounds like the most un-american thing i’ve heard all day. Very weird.
Well he lost my vote
Yes, but doesn’t he look tired?
ok, i’m eating crow now, for criticizing the “he’s weird” strategy. #happyiwaswrong
they really are mentally 5 years old
“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different.” -Donald Trump https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/opinions/president-trump-six-year-old-with-nuclear-weapons-dantonio/index.html
Omg… I hadn’t heard of this before. Parody dies in the wake of Trumps giant fucking stupid diapered ass
That’s why I added the link. I thought anyone reading who wasn’t already familiar with the quote would just assume it was a joke, I know I would.
It makes sense. You can’t reason with it, you can’t use descriptive accurate language because they might not understand, or fail to understand why it applies to them.
Weird - to them - means “non-conforming” and that is a terrible, terrible thing for a conservative.
More than just non-conforming generally too. They super quickly embraced that non-conformist image when it came to the masks.
But it feels like just calling them weird triggers a primal fear within them that they’re not really part of the “in-group” after all. It works where other insults don’t because they can’t easily write it off as their enemies simply being jealous of how cool they are basically.
I think it is really, really effective when women are calling Republican men creepy weirdos. I don’t know if it would work to have Biden call the likes of MTG and Bobo creepy weirdos (even though it’s obviously true), though.
I think I just saw a viral type post pushed on reddit r/TwoXChromosomes with the subject of, paraphrasing “If you support Project 2025 by voting for donnie, I’m cutting you out of my life. No exceptions.”
GOOD
i actually had to go back to reddit to check that out. here it is for anyone interested
Some folks don’t grow up they just get bigger
At this point can we consider that MAGA is the “new” and Americanized version of the Nazi party, and that Trump is trying to become a somehow worse version of Hitler?
Sure, there’s no rhetoric about the Arian race in the public literature, but the ideals and concepts are pretty similar. Instead of considering anyone who is non-white, non-blonde, non-blue eyed, to be less than, it’s instead about “God loving Christians” and basically the concept of, if you’re not with us then you are not an American.
Transpose some conceptual groups for fairly equal in size/scope groups, and it’s essentially the same playbook.
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. C’mon America… You were a big factor in defeating the Nazis… DON’T BECOME THEM
no rhetoric about the Arian race
Pretty much a direct parallel
Sure, there’s no rhetoric about the Arian race in the public literature
Maybe not overtly, but there are TONS of *wink wink, nudge nudge* rhetoric about the Aryan race, they just couch it in dog whistles and have for decades. Here’s the famous Atwater quote from 84 where he admits it:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “N****, N****, N****.” By 1968 you can’t say “N****”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N****, N****.”
I would agree that it’s a lot of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, underlying white supremacist ideology.
I don’t even think it’s a secret. They just refuse to say it overtly because of the social impact of it. A portion of people who voted, and will vote for Trump, might have a problem with them being very obviously racist/Nazis.
I don’t think that’s a majority, but those that now or less stay out of politics, and are just habitual Republican voters (maybe they’re subscribed to the party or something? A “card carrying Republican” type thing), would see the overt racist/Nazi themes and reconsider their position instead of blindly doing what they’ve always done.
Instead it’s about making things “great”, an overly broad and obtuse term to use as a focus of your political goals. With vague and ultimately meaningless talk about what that means, without any actual hard statements.
They’re avoiding any commitments to do a specific thing or achieve a specific goal, and it’s all a smokescreen. Anyone paying attention knows that you can’t have your cake and eat it too, which is essentially what they’ve promised at every turn. The horrible fuckery of the medicare system comes to mind. They were going to make it “great” and affordable… How? Nobody knows. They didn’t even know. What did they deliver? Not that. It’s not great. Affordable? That is debatable. It’s not just Medicare. It’s everything.
They only other time I’ve seen this phenomenon is at work. Sales people will sometimes promise clients that a product will do everything for them. Well beyond the abilities of that product. I’m not in sales. I’m a technical support/implementation person. I have to give the end user/client the bucket of cold water to say, no, it doesn’t do that, and it’s not able to do that. When I approach management about it, the response is inevitably “make it work”, aka, find a solution, and don’t bother me about it. I tend to quit jobs that put me in that kind of a position, so it’s rare that I end up in it.
What Trump, and a lot of what I’ve heard from his party lately, does is entirely the same. He’s acting like a shady sales person, telling you everything that he thinks that you want to hear, then foisting the task of actually accomplishing any of his wild statements onto implementation people who basically tell him that his promises and statements about what we can do, or will do, cannot be achieved. They’re told to “make it work” and they do their best, but it ends up making things fucking suck. I don’t blame anyone except the sales person telling me that they can do something that I later find out, cannot be done.
My main problem is that, this isn’t just his own business that’s going to suffer and fail as a result of his insane ramblings. We’re talking about the country of the United States of America which will suffer immense damage if he is allowed to continue this circus.
I don’t believe anything he says.
I generally don’t believe politicians. I also don’t believe most sales people. As for a politician with the approximate credibility (or lack thereof), of a sales person? You do the math.
The argument I have heard from the Republican voters is some derivative of “we need to bring this country together and be united!” After a few questions is always under their ideology.
They want everyone to change to worship their fascist, racist, and regressive ideology rather than pull their heads out of the sand and realize everything they stand for is absolute trash.
Most of them don’t understand why we don’t worship Trump like they do. It’s so confusing to them that we don’t worship Biden or Harris like they worship Trump. To be a Republican is to lack all empathy.
“we need to bring this country together and be united!”
EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN FÜHRER!
I think he tries to be Americanized version of Putin. And Putin tries to be Russian version of Hitler
Putin is just the Putin version of Putin. He is nothing like Hitler and not trying to be either.
At least in propoganda he tries to. In reality obviously authoritarism is different from totalitarism.
I think he tries to be Americanized version of Putin. And Putin tries to be Russian version of Hitler
Look, I’m sorry I didn’t vote in 2016 but I’ve voted every time since then and started paying attention to local politics. Now I have a protected bike lane next to my neighborhood and the roads aren’t full of holes
Good job. That’s all we should ask of you. You made a mistake, learned from it, and vow not to do it again. As long as you uphold that, you’ll be an outstanding citizen, and that’s all we should ask for.
I like protected bike lanes and roads without holes in them too!
So my buddy and I were bored in the car yesterday and I made up a game called “let’s bet how many minutes it will take me to scan through AM radio and hear that the immigrants are invading.” I was really sad when I won in, I shit you not, less than 3 minutes. But before he got to that when I first tuned in he was going on a whole rant about being butthurt that the orange one was being called a weirdo. It really upset the guy which was just absolutely hilarious. Oh and he managed to slip a transphobic pronoun joke in the middle of the rant. Remember all of this happened within less than 3 minutes of me starting at the bottom of the AM dial.
I love in the south and the radio is a fucked up place. It’s mostly all Christian or Republican talk radio. They tell people how they should think. like some random dude on the radio has all the answers.
My experience driving thru Indiana has been about the same. And that was some 10 years ago
I’m weird as shit. My life is a freak show and a fail whale working together to make a fail-ipolis.
And I’m fucking goofy.
Though I’m not trying to lead a nation with it. So I take no offense with this.
Being ok with being weird is not a common trait among conservatives.
Hah. The squares are the weird ones now.
It would be weird to get offended on that guy’s behalf.
First they came for sociopaths, then powerhungry hypocrites
And I did not speak out because fuck those guys
fail whale
I wonder what the fail whale would think of Elon
I feel that my guy
still don’t understand what’s wrong with being weird. republicans just hate it because their bigoted mind associate it with being different and they hate that.
The message isn’t for democrats. You insult people based on what they find insulting.
yeah that’s what i meant; they’re the ones turning it into a negative attack. the dems are just planting the seeds.
I think there’s different meanings in different contexts. You don’t want to be the “creepy weirdo” kind of weird, but then there are people who are into weird art or have weird kinks and they are great
… and this attack will be turned on us next.
Bro they’ve been calling us weird (and way worse) for decades.
I think the term “creepy” would also be effective.
For sure, and it is absolutely true.
I just like “weird” because it only works one way. For people who value individuality and diversity, it doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation. For people who value conformity, it’s a devastating insult. Apparently Ben Shapiro went on Megyn Kelly’s show to cry about it, which is great.
Keep $City Weird is a classic embrace of the term.
“keep $city weird” would go hard on a cap (no cap)
Yes. Honestly, what’s wrong with being weird? maga weird == creepy
This makes a lot more sense than weird. Old and weird is something one could put on a T-shirt or on a lemmy nbio and enjoy displaying it. It’s basically a Weird Al Yankovic T-shirt.
And the meaning of brat really hasn’t changed except in some limited social circles, just like the close association between coconuts, monkeys, and primitive tribal connotations. It’s as if someone was leading the Democratic marketing campaign by selling it within the bubble but in such a way that it is ultimately ineffective and easily twisted, and it’s giving me serious 2016 vibes. I really hope I’m wrong and just out of touch.
The only problem I have is I’m weird and I think weird is cool, I like weird people and I love towns that have a motto that is like keep Portland weird. I celebrate weird, but I guess it’s time to normalize the weird I’ve been supporting and ostracize the truly weird
Weird is neutral on it’s own, it’s context and tone and stuff that gives it positive and negative weight
Weird as in countercultural is cool. Weird as in talking about wanting to date your daughter is not so cool.
That’s disgusting, not “weird”.
It’s also weird. Normal people don’t want to date their daughter.
No, it’s not “also weird”. Use a more descriptive word. We can’t have one word be equally applicable to people that are slightly awkward and people that want to groom their children. Blindly grouping them together normalizes the latter and demonizes the former.
Also, “Normal” is a term used to make people feel othered. Consider what normal has excluded in the past (race, sexuality, gender, etc) and how disgusting we see that was now. Again, there are better words to use that don’t contribute (intentionally or not) to binding truly vile behavior to benign characteristics.
It is also weird. Weird is a pretty broad and neutral term. It encompasses quirky and creepy.
I find it so odd you’re strongly against the concept of normal while so gung ho about keeping weird as a thing. Weird is used just as much for othering.
I’m aware as you use it repeatedly for exactly that. I’m also aware that many people embrace their weirdness to take the power back from bullies and bigots. They should get to keep that without worrying about the term becoming a synonym for pedophile or fascist.
Weird is a loaded phrase. It was a gamble to see if it can track but in this way, against Trump, its working. I agree it was always my preference to be weird then be cool when I was young but this isn’t that kind of weird.
To someone who is conformist being “weird” is the worst thing. If you aren’t being weird is a badge of honor and people wear it proudly. This is why it works so well right now.
The kind of weird you embrace isn’t the kind of weird he is. He’d hate it even worse if we said he was your kind of weird. When he’s gone we can make weird great again.
“Don’t worry, we’re only gonna do this shitty thing for a little bit, we swear!” That’s not a reassurance, it’s just an excuse.
Calling out the weirdness of an objectively weird (and creepy, and megalomaniac, and venal, and abusive and dangerous) old man, who’s weird by choice and despite all his privileges, isn’t shitty.
It’s the hope that his brand of weirdness becomes irrelevant and forgotten that I was referring to, not saying there would ever be a time to stop naming it what it is, or feeling obliged to make excuses for it.
It absolutely is shitty. You’re not “calling out” trump & co. for some objective characteristic - you’re lumping everyone that’s ever been derided for being “weird”, bullied, and generally othered in with them for cheap political points. Your excuse that it’s only temporary is a hollow promise I expect even you don’t believe. The damage is to more than just one person, and that doesn’t get undone as soon as you decide you’ve had your fun and go home.
