"Republicans Are Weird"

Submission 19,657

Part of a series on 2024 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]

About

Republicans Are Weird refers to unofficial messaging adopted by the Democratic Party's 2024 Presidential Election campaign that sought to deride Republican policies in general, and J.D. Vance, in particular, as "weird" as opposed to only "scary" or "dangerous." Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made an appearance on MSNBC where he described key Republican policies, as well as Trump's seeming fixation on Hannibal Lecter in his campaign speeches, as "weird" in July 2024. This sentiment about Trump was also echoed in a press release from Kamala Harris's presidential campaign that described Donald Trump as "old and weird." In late July 2024, businessman and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy notably criticized Democrats for adopting "weird" as a messaging tactic, calling it "dumb & juvenile."

Background

One of the earliest mentions of Democrats using the word "weird" to disparage their Republican opponents is a quote from Kamala Harris reported by CNN^[1] on July 5th, 2024. When asked what she would do if Donald Trump followed her around on the debate stage as he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Harris reportedly said that she would turn around and ask Trump, "Why are you being so weird?"

X^[2] user @JohnDiLillo posted the excerpt to his Twitter / X account on July 5th, 2024, gathering over 40,000 likes in a month (seen below).

Developments

In July 2024, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appeared on MSNBC to describe Republican policies on public health and education as "weird," saying, "These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that's what it comes down to … These are weird ideas." A clip from the appearance was posted to Tim Walz's Twitter^[3] page on July 23rd, 2024, where it gathered over 43,000 likes in a week (seen below).

On July 25th, Harris's campaign issued a press release describing Trump as "old and quite weird." That same day, X^[4] user @jbendery made a post about the email, gathering over 11,000 likes in four days (seen below).

On July 24th, 2024, Senator Brian Schatz quoted^[6] a video of J.D. Vance saying that votes should be reserved for people with children, describing it as "quite weird" (seen below, left). Meanwhile, Tim Walz^[5] continued to describe Trump as "weird," calling attention to videos of the Republican nominee repeatedly bringing up fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter in his campaign rallies (seen below, right).

On July 29th, the Democratic super PAC "Won't Pac Down" posted a video depicting Republican voters as increasingly sweaty sexual deviants who want to dictate what people do with their sex lives. The post gathered over 1 million views within three hours (seen below).

Republican Backlash

On July 28th, 2024, the X^[7] account @grandoldmemes posted a meme showing a derogatory caricature of a trans person and Democratic voter with the caption, "JD Vance is weird," gathering over 83,000 likes in a day. The post was quoted by X^[8] user @BasketCasePA that same day, who wrote, "Taking the time to illustrate this just proves that you are all, in fact, very weird," gathering over 154,000 likes in a day (seen below, left).

Also on July 28th, Vivek Ramaswamy^[9] posted a tweet calling the Democrats' new "Republicans are weird" messaging "dumb & juvenile," gathering over 54,000 likes in a day. Shortly after, the X account @dieworkwear responded with an image showing Ramaswamy wearing shoes too big for his feet, gathering over 100,000 likes in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).