Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz seems to have a good sense of how to pithily capture the political mood. He is credited with popularizing the use of ‘weird’ in describing the Republican ticket. He did this even before he was selected and this apparently was what caught the attention of the Kamala Harris team.
“Walz repeated it at his first appearance as Harris’ running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, when referencing Republicans. “These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” the governor said to huge applause.”
…Much of the Walz buzz was self-generated on the cable news circuit. With a round of hits on MSNBC and CNN, Walz popularized calling Republicans, including Sen. JD Vance, “weird.”
Walz repeated it at his first appearance as Harris’ running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, when referencing Republicans. “These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell,” the governor said to huge applause.
The initial “weird” reference marked a rhetorical shift from the high-minded, “threat to our nation,” that Biden leaned on to a more retable one that may have taken root in Walz’ early career as a social studies teacher and cafeteria monitor.
McCollum said her congressional colleagues “kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Did you see him on Morning Joe?’”
It also caught the ear of the Harris team, which started incorporating “weird” into their own campaign talking points. For them, it became clear that Walz could be an effective messenger, a defender and a bulldog against the Republican ticket.
“His stock turned with the ‘weird’ comment because they saw him as someone who could, in a Midwestern, folksy way, sum up everything that people think about Republicans that is so damning but doesn’t sound partisan,” said Morgan Jackson, a top adviser to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. “He did in one minute what six months of research didn’t surface.”
Clips from his cable news appearances zinged across the internet. Democratic fans unearthed other videos of Walz as governor, living out his suburban dad energy, including teasing his daughter about being a vegetarian — a clip that garnered more than 3 million views. Many fans on X declared themselves “Walz-pilled,” a flattering reference to the Matrix.
Other Democrats have picked up on this and are really leaning into the weird theme
“Tim Walz, in his beautiful midwestern plainspoken way, he summed up JD Vance the best. He’s a weirdo,” [Pennsylvania governor Josh] Shapiro said, encouraging the crowd.
Earlier, Senator John Fetterman had referenced the same, effectively pithy insult.
“This election is about moving our country forward with Vice-President Harris and Governor Walz. Or a couple of really, really, really, really weird dudes,” Fetterman said.” “And look, I gotta tell you, I work with JD Vance … and I’m here to confirm that he is a seriously weird dude.”
Then in the speech Walz gave after he was first introduced by Kamala Harris as her running mate, he also thanked her for ‘bringing back the joy’ to politics. The ticket has picked up on that too and they both refer to themselves as ‘joyful warriors’, a not-so-subtle dig at the contrast with the perpetually dour and creepy Donald Trump.
Walz hits Trump for never laughing, further bolstering the idea that he is weird. In an interview with CNN before he was selected, Walz said:
“Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind. And I thought we just think we give him way too much credit…Have you ever seen the guy laugh? That seems very weird to me that an adult can go through six-and-a-half years in the public eye, if he has laughed, it’s at someone and not with someone. That is weird behavior.”.
At rallies, Harris looks like she is enjoying herself whereas I have never seen Trump laugh in a happy way. He always looks either dour or angry or sneering. Republicans are seizing upon Harris’s laugh and have created compilations of videos thinking that it will hurt her. It is not clear that accusing someone of laughing is the insult that they think it is. As Robert Reich says, what’s wrong with laughing?
She’s filling politics with a hope and exuberance I haven’t seen since John F. Kennedy ran for president. Her smile is spreading cheer. Her laugh projects joy. Her joyfulness is igniting excitement and enthusiasm.
She is still deadly serious about what America is up against. But she’s combining it with a jubilance that tells us we can triumph.
…Laughter is based on connection. You laugh with other people. TV sitcoms used to have laugh tracks because it was easier for viewers to laugh along with everyone else, even imaginary others.
Laughing together is one of the important signs of humanity.
Contrast this with Trump, who never laughs. For him, it’s all anger, hate, and grievance.
Bullies don’t laugh with. They laugh at. Trump’s jokes are always at someone else’s expense. He ridicules disabled people. He’s nasty toward immigrants. He’s snide when he talks about liberals.
Bullies don’t laugh with because they have no compassion for other people. They don’t know how to laugh with others because they don’t know how to connect with others.
…Trump and his sycophants just don’t get it. In fact, they have it exactly backward. Americans love cheerfulness. We celebrate joyfulness.
Ronald Reagan understood this better than anyone. He always had a twinkle in his eye. It was always morning in America.
Barack Obama also realized that running on a positive message, in his case ‘Hope and Change’ could bring political benefits.
Creepy Trump and weird Vance are running a campaign that says that everything is going to hell. That message is hard to deliver in a joyful way, so they are stuck looking dour and angry.
Mano,
FYI somethings gone dare I say weird with the first blockquote in the OP -- para 2 is largely repeated in para 8.
[Thanks! I corrected it. -- Mano]
I can’t say I am surprised -- the Dems have given the impression over the years of being rather obsessed with crafting the messaging by way of focus testing, rather than simply engaging in normal conversation. For a long time, their manner of speaking has had too much the feel of ‘professional politician’ -- very distinct from an ordinary person’s manner of speaking. In fact, wasn’t it repeatedly noted by political blatherers that Trump’s campaign garnered some of its appeal with people specifically because it did not come off as polished political talking points?
Why yes, yes they did. How nice of the Dem organisers to discover ordinary conversation.
Let’s not forget that DT mocked people in the military by calling them losers and suckers. Where are all the good American patriots condemning him for this? Not a peep.
“Creepy Trump and weird Vance are running a campaign that says that everything is going to hell. That message is hard to deliver in a joyful way, so they are stuck looking dour and angry”
Also, populism does not have a good lasting power over ‘regular’ politics.
The GOP has become a one-issue party: The other party is Evil/Satanic/Communist.
President Jimmy Carter, 1977: “Put on a sweater, save money on heating!”
Republicans: “You can’t tell ME what to do!”
General Public: “WAAAAAH, Democrats are too snooty and their messaging is TOO COMPLICATED!”
At least as important as Walz’s positive qualities is that he’s not Shapiro (and somewhat less important, not Kelly). Shapiro certainly, and Kelly possibly, would have immediately threatened the wave of enthusiasm from the young, progressives, and minorities Harris has been surfing. Shapiro has attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators as antisemitic (although Jews make up a significant group within them) and by comparing them to the KKK, and has supported school vouchers; Kelly applauded Netanyahu when he described them as “Iran’s useful idiots”, and also has an anti-union record. Harris, like any candidate in a basically binary electoral system, can either “reach out to the centre” (try to attract undecided voters) or “fire up the base” (get the core vote out). Although of course attempts to do both are possible, they are not easy. By choosing Walz, Harris prioritised the second while trying to minimise repelling the undecided -- a correct choice, I’m convinced, given the continued inflow of cash and shifting in the polls since she chose him..
@3: Yeah, that’s just the tip of the iceberg with that bozo. They’re also trying to ban a ton of books on the excuse that the ideas in them harm their kids… But they sure didn’t bat an eye when Trump’s Access Hollywood hot mic moment went viral and everyone could hear him brag about what a grabby little crotch goblin he was. And I don’t know what they were thinking about when Trump addressed the nation and suggested injecting bleach was the way to avoid being sick. They certainly weren’t thinking about what their kids might learn from it. Or the terribly fake way Trump and the evangelicals both pretended they had anything whatsoever in common just so they could collectively force more authoritarian nonsense on the rest of us.
As far as I can tell that last bit is the only reason anyone votes for him. What’s good about the racist, mysogynist sex offender? Only one thing, he’s going to force bad authoritarian ideas on lots of people who would otherwise never have to put up with that crap. There are people out there who feel like something of that nature really needs to happen, as bizarre as that sounds. I know because I grew up with some of them.
Sorry this got longer than I meant it to… and it still doesn’t cover much of what’s there.
@3, Matt G, remember, not only did “the base” mock a man who went to Viet Nam, fought, and was injured…they preferred a nepo baby whose Daddy got him out of the war by pretending to be a pilot in the Alabama National Guard. A man who was on mouth-kissing relations with the Saudis, and were 15/19 of those who committed 9/11, made sure the Saudi royalty got safe flights out of the USA, and then declared war on another country entirely to avenge his Daddy’s failures. A war that his own children didn’t fight.
Why? Because a failson dry drunk draft-dodger was someone who appealed to the base--they felt they could “have a beer” with him.
Between the Olympics and the huge plot twist of suddenly having a Presidential ticket that is genuinely socially progressive, it’s been a good week for the USA.
It’s been great to see their campaign cut straight through the partisan divide by upholding the basics of Socialist ideals like being kind to others, setting a good example, and minding your own business.
Heh. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I guess Kamabla is the new covfefe.