Fuck I didn’t think the libs would be able to do it… There’s reactionaries posting shit like… ‘how are we wierd?’ And seemingly genuinely butthurt.

They should have been taking this strategy a long time ago instead of always acting mortified. I think chuds relish when they horrifying the people they don’t like.

  • egg1918 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Really surprised it took them so long. You could tell that the chuds were pushing it too far with the anti trans shit. It’s just way too off-putting to grillman types.

    IMO it’s a big reason they kinda ate shit in the 22 midterms

  • crime [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Of course this works on reactionaries. They consider themselves enlightened and advocate for return to “traditional” society, viewing that as extremely normal. They think everyone secretly agrees with them. And — crucially — they spend an inordinate amount of time seething about people they view as “deviant”, i.e., weird. They think they’re the paragons of normalcy.

    They’re not self-aware about how everyone else thinks they’re not normal, because they primarily socialize with other reactionaries who agree with them on just about everything.

    • the_post_of_tom_joad [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Well from where we’re (and they’re) standing, success is failure… Their continued relevance is predicated on burgerbrain’s belief that they are the good guys, stumped and stymied by Republicans. If they ever fuck up and get a supermajority then they have to get all “parlementarian” because they will fail to keep their promises and there has to be a limit on the average voter’s credulity… right?

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    The face of of the Nuevo cultural warrior alt-right since 2016 has been Trump, but Trump isn’t of that movement. He’s good at pitching to them, giving them a god emperor figure to lionize, but he’s an outside avatar for him. Trump doesn’t care enough about anything than his optics to get deep into that.

    Vance is though. He’s been stewing in that terminally online world for years now, so suddenly he’s the face of what until now had existed as an abstract for voters that weren’t paying that much attention. Which makes it clear that it’s not a fourth reich movement of ubermensches, it’s sad sack, whiny, doughy white boys. And that’s so easy to mock.

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Yeah of course it is. Respectability politics is a fuck and thats why Trump won the first time - because he didn’t try to be respectable, he just called em like he sees them.
    Triangulators have finally figured this out. You don’t need to use 5-dollar words or weird rhetorical phrasings to talk around issues, when the issue is that your opponent is a clown.

  • hexaglycogen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    genuinely astonished how much this makes sense but i’m still like baffled it’s working

    Like, they are weird fucking losers. They’re dangerous fascists, but they’re also whiny, scared, irrational losers.

      • RiotDoll [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        100%, fascism is all about the image of seriousness, solidarity, and the struggle against the perenially weak but ever-existentially-threatening Enemy, and the pageantry and horseshit required just cannot accept ridicule. It’s why media like The Producers works at all, and it’s weird nobody in power thought to just ridicule these people, but i’ve been doing it as much as i can in real life and it works every time

        • HamManBad [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          It’s also why Christofascists were so triggered by the Olympic opening ceremony. Can’t have even a whiff of mockery spoil your aesthetic.

    • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 months ago

      Someone else said it, but reactionaries see themselves as normal. You can’t be weird, and be normal.

      They think they’re the ‘in group’ in DEI speak. To them, they’re normal for the beliefs that horrify others. Being called weird by a critical mass of people establishes them as the ‘out group’ and stigmatizes the things that comprise their identity.

      It also doesn’t hurt that democrats are highlighting JD Vance as the face of republican weirdness. That insult aimed at Trump would only be effective until Trump declared himself weird and put a $50 bumper sticker on his online store that says “Weird” in bright red letters.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    There’s no way it lasts. They’re going to do some shit like have Pharrel Williams make a Happy parody about being weird and encouraging people to vote. They’re going to lean too far into the one word instead of calling them orgiastic pedophiles. Of course, if their politics allowed for it instead of being mutually exclusive (i.e. supportive of the LGBT and Palestine), they could call them genital obsessed freaks and genocidal maniacs.

    In fact, either they do the Pharrel Williams route or their enemy is simultaneously weak and strong and they have to concede an anti-woke alliance or some such nonsense.

    • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      They’re going to run it into the ground. That’s my prediction. I’m already seeing it on Twitter and Reddit. A bunch of smuglord responses to every post they make that just say “gee you sure are WEIRD sir!” They found one thing that works and they’re just going to repeat it until it loses all meaning.

      • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        Idk tho when they keep showing their ass in response to it every time by pulling out absurd transphobic memes they have saved on their phone I think it might just keep working forever.

      • gueybana [any]@hexbear.net
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        Yeah, what’s good so far is that weird is ambiguous enough to mean anything.

        Ask dems how Repos are weird and theyll say some shit like ‘well, GOP says that they want secure borders and yet they keep allowing all these illegals in’

        • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Right. I think it works best when really just used occasionally, and mostly by smaller-time actors. Harris gave a speech the other day that included a line like “and by the way, have you noticed how a lot of these guys are just plain WEIRD?” It felt unnatural and, well, weird. Waltz and people like him can deliver it convincingly because they can talk about normal things they do. Harris can’t, because she is also weird. If they oversaturate with it, it’s going to lose effectiveness.

      • FearsomeJoeandmac [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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        4 months ago

        This is my thinking. They’ve found gold and instead of using it in mixture with other things. They’re going to run it into the ground.

        Eh… we will see. Chuds getting self conscious is funny to me.

      • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        It reminds me of “ok boomer”, but that stopped because teens found other things to say, which I doubt will happen this time

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        4 months ago

        Idk. The whole fascade is sort of at risk with this, they won’t be able to co-opt it or anything because weird is completely at odds with right wing messaging.

        Even if they go “yeah well if it’s weird to blah blah blah then I guess I am weird” it’ll just come across like a bullied dweeb lol

    • HamManBad [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      They need Walz on the ballot. He’s the one who used it first, not because it was a tested strategy, but because it’s just genuinely something he believes. He’s probably the most progressive and pro-labor candidate for VP. Obviously still a Democrat, but one of the few non-lizards in the party that can actually push against the emerging maga communism nonsense that the teamsters president was trying to feed into

  • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I think the guys in the dark room who are all spotlit but their faces are always in shadow concluded that Dems remaining in power is better for their share values than Trump and so sent the secret memo threatening to release the pedo tapes to force the DNC to let some actually competent people do stuff.

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      I think they’re all out of campaign ideas (see kamala’s new ad where she’s put up as even worse on immigration than trump) and some intern whose brain isn’t yet rubbed smooth by association with the rest of the lanyards noticed people on social media calling jorkin depeanus vance “weird” and ran with it

      • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        As far as I can tell, Patient Zero was Tim Waltz. He said something like “when I get home, I throw a Frisbee for my dog, then rub his belly when he brings it back. Can you imagine any of these guys doing that? They’re just all so weird.” The Democratic machine noticed that this engendered a bunch of wojak-nooo and ran with it.

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    4 months ago

    Its just ‘deplorable’ but they dont have to look it up in a dictionary

    • HamManBad [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      “Deplorable” is condescending and implies a moral hierarchy. “Weird” is a relatively value-neutral observation. You can’t pretend to be oppressed just because someone called you weird, without proving their point.

  • Nora
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    4 months ago

    What’s this in reference too?

    • chauncey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Rather than sticking with the “republicans are threats to democracy” talking point, Dems are pushing a “republicans are weirdos” talking point.

      • knightly [none/use any]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        Democrats never believed in the “Republicans are a threat to democracy” line, if they did then they wouldn’t be bending over backwards about “bipartisanship” at every turn.

        They do believe “Republicans are weird” though, and it’s the most honest they’ve ever been. Democrats are happy to work with weirdos.

  • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Does anyone here watch Evil?

    It reminds me of the scene where

    Kristen tells Leland she knows his actual name is Jake and that he sold his soul because he was a loser nerd kid who couldn’t keep a partner.