I’m weird. Statistically, if you’re reading this, you are too.

As an atheist, a secular humanist and a socialist, I’m aware that my philosophical and political stances aren’t shared by the majority of Americans. And that’s fine with me.

In every era of history, conventional wisdom was rife with prejudices and fallacies. It was the weirdos – people with the courage to stand apart from the crowd – who deserve credit for all the progress humanity has made. I aspire to follow the example of those brave nonconformists. I want to believe what’s true, not what’s popular.

Of course, I hope to persuade everyone else, but I’m realistic about the chances of that. If it doesn’t happen in my lifetime, I have the consolation that I was true to myself. If other people view me as weird, so be it.

Not only am I weird, I’m also WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it puts me in a minority among the world population. (That acronym was coined to remind university researchers that college students, the most common pool of research subjects, aren’t representative of human diversity.)

I’d be a hypocrite if I said it was inherently shameful to be weird. I’m not afraid to stand up for my convictions, and I think more people should do likewise.

That said, I’m delighted by Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz, who came up with one of the most viral lines of 2024:

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” Walz said in a TV interview last month.

…Walz went back to the reference at his first rally Tuesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, saying of Republicans: “These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”

This line of attack has gained traction among Democrats, especially because Republicans really, really hate it:

“Well, they’re the weird ones,” the former president insisted Thursday on a conservative talk radio show. “And if you’ve ever seen her, with the laugh, and everything else, that’s a weird deal going on there. They’re the weird ones. Nobody’s ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not… And he’s not either, I will tell you. J.D. is not at all. They are.”

“We’re actually just the opposite,” he said, after a string of complaints about the media covering the talking point. “We’re right down the middle.”

I’m in favor of anything that keeps America from falling to fascism, but there’s a tension here. How can we embrace the “Republicans are weird” message without sending the message that nonconformity is a bad thing?

The resolution to this, I’d argue, is that “weird” says something about where you stand relative to everyone else. One side has made our peace with that. The other… hasn’t.

We’re not weird, please don’t put in the newspaper that we’re weird

The reason why “weird” so stings the religious right is because they’ve gone to great lengths to convince themselves that they’re not weird. Just think of how they’ve have described themselves through the decades: the silent majority, the Moral Majority, the real America. They very badly want to believe that they’re the normal, respectable ones and everyone else is a gang of freaks and weirdos. All their self-conceptions rest on this conceit.

The reality is very much the opposite. The religious right’s core beliefs aren’t normal, ordinary, or shared by the majority of people.

Whether it’s their creepy obsession with policing everyone’s sex lives and reproductive choices (most people are willing to live and let live); or their insistence on total obedience to a long list of dogmas (most people aren’t so ideologically rigid); or their belief that God’s will is the only definition of right and wrong (most people think human well-being and happiness are on the list somewhere too); or their morality rooted in might-makes-right, strict hierarchy and submission to authority (most people value equality and democracy); or their economics rooted in laissez-faire libertarianism and unchecked power for the rich (most people think some regulation is a good thing)… in every case, the religious right is out of the mainstream. Often well out of it.

But they don’t want to admit this to themselves. They cling to the belief that these are normal ways of thinking and therefore can’t be wrong. Often, religious proselytizers go so far as to insist that everyone believes what they believe, whether they admit it or not.

Being called “weird” isn’t a trivial thing for the religious right. In fact, it’s deeply threatening. It strikes at the heart of their self-flattering illusion. It says they’re not as normal or mainstream as they tell themselves they are.

Religious conservatives want conformity to work in their favor. Their chief argument is, “You should believe this because it’s what normal people believe.” But if their beliefs aren’t normal, then they can’t rely on that. They’d have to defend their ideas on their own merits and not merely as the default. That’s turf the GOP doesn’t want to fight on.

Being weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing for those who embrace it. If your ideas stand up to rational scrutiny, if they’re good ideas, then you can defend them on those grounds – whether other people view them as weird or not.

But if your ideas aren’t founded in reason, then the only argument left is conformity. Do this because it’s what we all do, because it’s what we’ve always done, because it’s what people are supposed to do. That’s the strategy the religious right has always relied on. Without it, they have nothing left. That’s why they’re terrified of being viewed as the weirdos they are.