Continuing this from the thread in !chapotraphouse@hexbear.net Have the Democrats finally hit on a good messaging strategy in calling Trump "weird?"
Original Post by @Philosoraptor@hexbear.net
Inspired by this post and the fact that I'm seeing a lot of regular libs start to coverage on "these guys are weird little freaks" as a messaging policy, which really seems to be bringing out the
in the far right. It's working much better for them than all of Biden's attempts to portray Trump as some kind of existential threat to
.
This is interesting, and only surprising in the sense that it is surprising to see the Democrats do something kind of effective for once. Fascists thrive on being seen as cool, powerful, and dangerous; those aesthetics are central to the brand. Every time Biden gave a big speech about how the future of democracy was on the line in the election, it played into that aesthetic. Every time CNN calls January 6 a "coup attempt," it plays into that aesthetic.
Calling these people weird little freaks with weird dumb ideas and weird creepy fixations does not play into that aesthetic. It breaks the illusion that all the freaks at the RNC wearing bandages on their ears are actually normal and represent normal people. They aren't, and they don't. This is yet another thing that the left has known for some time now, but that libs seem to maybe be catching on to: taking these idiots seriously empowers them. Actually realizing that and using it is one of the smarter things that the Dems have done in a while.
I think them seizing this rhetorical strategy also preemptively defangs the Republicans trying to call her weird too; it would seem weak and uncreative to just repeat the same attack. I don't think it was done intentionally with that in mind--they're not that clever--but it is a nice side effect for them.
I hadn't considered that, you're probably right
I don’t know about that. Democrats screeched about everyone being Russian bots for years, then suddenly reactionaries started calling them NPCs and suddenly there were 500 articles about how the meme was offensive and dehumanizing. They’re both weird NPCs but democrats reacted to it more strongly by crying whereas conservatives just started calling themselves russian bots for fun lol
It's true that we shouldn't underestimate their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They're very, very good at that.
To be fair, liberals are very bad at retaining fervor and defending victory. We’ll see how it plays out here. They are lucky that popular culture is being defined by Kendrick’s beef against a weird canadian guy.