By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...Words have a life of their own. You remember and likely still use the word "nerd". That one dates back to the early-1950s and Detroit, Michigan, where it was first used to mean a drip or a square - as in a social loser. It's still very much around.
Republicans are wondering if the word "weird" associated with them will also stick.
To write the obvious: They are not happy. Democrats are still laughing. One of their own affixed it on Republicans recently, and "weird" has become a drag for the GOP. Thank Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for pasting the word on the face of every MAGA Republican from coast-to-coast.
Are they really "weird"?
Well, bellicose party figurehead Donald J. Trump is not your normal American, and his VEEP nominee J.D. Vance (shown at left in photo below) stands accused of having sex with a couch. Oh, but there is so much more to stick on these guys. We'll let the working press stay on this campaign phenomenon. "Weird" is white-hot on the trail.
Normalizing oddness (is hatred odd?) has been the strength of the Republican Party for years.
This from a report published by motherjones.com: [ "Weird" reverses and intervenes at a crucial point of our society. It says the appeals by the right to supposed family values (anti-trans bigotry; restricting no-fault divorce; slashing public-school funding; hatred of immigrants) are not normal. They aren’t fundamental American values that the liberal elites have somehow derailed. They are, instead, deeply strange. And "we" (a new silent majority that Walz invokes in his use of "weird") are tired of it.]
I know, I know. Its politics (polititicalspeak) and all of it is partisan, one side trying to diss the other.
In-your-face vocabulary plays a key role in defining politicians and their campaigns.
That is historical.
Trump and Vance may be weird, but they are only the latest. Their coupling certainly is a new one, what with the presidential aspirant on the ticket being 78+ and his running mate half his age, the man on the top of the ticket wealthy and the second banana not so much. They are not - and never will be - equals.
That's weird, I suppose...
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