Let’s face it: There are worse things than being called weird. Still, the Democrats stumbled upon one of their famed talking points when they called Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump weird. So captivated are they by the word that the official Kamala Harris campaign X account has used it more than a dozen times since then.
Now, the White House is getting in on the fun. A Biden administration senior deputy press secretary pestered the GOP by posting, “Don’t be weird.” Then there is the leftist cable TV commentator cabal that can’t stop talking about all the weird people on the right.
In response, conservatives have taken to defending their supposed weirdness with historical tales of how weird our Founders were. The whole thing is getting positively, well, weird. For example, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy penned an article for The Free Press, using the premise that weird is actually a badge of honor:
“Benjamin Franklin was not only a co-author of the Declaration of Independence but also founded hospitals and universities; dabbled in medicine; created a musical instrument that went on to be used by Mozart and Beethoven; designed the lightning rod, bifocal spectacles, and the Franklin stove. Robert Livingston helped design the steamship as a side project while serving as an ambassador to France. Roger Sherman was a self-taught attorney who never had any formal education. Thomas Jefferson was fluent in four languages, wrote nineteen thousand letters by hand, and invented prototypes of the polygraph and the swivel chair. Oh, and he designed the architecture of the Virginia State Capitol building.”
They were weird.
It’s all true. But if weird isn’t at least somewhat negative, why is it so often followed by “but,” as in “She’s pretty weird but very nice.” Say what you will, but weird is generally meant to be a derogatory term. Dictionary.com defines weird as “strange, odd, and bizarre.” The Urban Dictionary was a bit more charitable, countering with “something that’s unique, strange, awesome, crazy, or out of the ordinary.” The Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of “weird” to a 14th-century poem. (The Brits often get weird about words.)
What is certainly weird is that the Democrats can’t seem to muster enough originality to speak out on their own — they must parrot one another, and they do it incessantly.
Now that the right has begun to fight back by pointing out all the Democratic weirdness, the GOP is being flamed as intolerant. This is a common attack from the progressive flank. NBC News exemplified the accusatory spin in a recent article, saying, “People on the right, in turn, sought to reverse the affront by leaning on some of the topics that have most resonated in their social media circles, most notably stigmatizing LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people.” This is supposed to stop people from saying a guy with a beard in a sequin dress standing next to the president is not weird. Whatever.
It’s worth noting that this is not the first time a presidential race has veered away from the things that matter to voters and descended into pettiness. In fact, American history is replete with strange and unusual presidential contests that could easily fall under the weird umbrella. HowStuffWorks.com looked at the “10 Bizarre Moments in Presidential Elections” and highlighted some pretty weird occurrences.
Probably the weirdest occurred in 1824. Candidates Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, Henry Clay, and John Quincy Adams were all from the same party, interestingly called the Democratic-Republicans. But that wasn’t the only thing.
Jackson won the popular vote, but since no one got to the magic number – which at the time was 131 electors – the contest was thrown to the House of Representatives. As per the Twelfth Amendment, a maximum of three candidates can be voted upon by the lower chamber, therefore, Clay – having the lowest overall support – was out, and since he detested Jackson, he pulled a fast one and talked all his electors into voting for Adams. The loss stung Jackson, and four years later, he came roaring back and put Adams out to pasture. By any standard it was a pretty weird election year.
Another weird and bizarre presidential contest involved incumbent Ulysses S. Grant. Horace Greeley, founder of the New-York Tribune, ran against him as a candidate from the Liberal Republican Party and the Democratic Party. But it didn’t matter much in the end: Grant crushed Greeley with 286 electoral votes. In another bizarre twist, Greeley died only weeks after the election.
There are other weird instances, such as Eugene Debs, who ran his presidential campaign from a prison cell; Thomas Eagleton, who was asked to step down as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 because he had gone through electric shock therapy; Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who ran in 1992, then quit the race, and then jumped back in. Perot claimed that the George H.W. Bush campaign was running a black op on his youngest daughter. That’s pretty weird.
With this bit of history in mind, the weird thing about calling one another weird in a presidential election is actually pretty weird. Chew on that a bit, and if you’re weird enough, it will eventually make sense.
