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’m feeling the same way. Using “weird” to attack anyone is just shallow and mean, and isn’t going to resonate well with people that grew up being dismissed as weird. It’s a bullying tactic that politicians should be above.
*It’s also worth commenting on how this serves to legitimize their own bully tactics. If just saying someone is weird matters now, so does all of the right’s attacks on names, looks, disabilities, etc. Emboldening those tactics is a mistake.