The Witness Chronicles, July 28, 2024

Weird goings on in Trumpland

Photo by Dan Parlante on Unsplash

The Weirdo Strategy- Dems May Focus On How Weird Trump Is

And he gives them plenty to work with

Trump’s speeches sound more and more like a broken record these days, with him recycling his insults, his lies, and a lot of garbled thoughts and memory lapses. He even reverts to insulting Biden now and then. And some Dem strategists see a new way to attack him by focusing on what a weird human he has become.

One of the ways to drive a narcissist crazy is to laugh at him, to mock him, and to generally use the same verbal tools he uses to attack his opponents. But this has its downsides too because it can be seen as using the same bullying tactics many of us find disgusting.

So going after him means finding a balance between simply demonstrating how out there he is while not getting down into the mud with him. Portraying him as a weirdo may hit that balance, but it must be done by using his own words, coming out of his own mouth, and letting voters build their own impression.

This could work because he offers a constant stream of examples and most, if not all of it, are either on video or audio. So far this approach has not been successfully used against him but I think it may have been because Biden found it distasteful and distracting.

But one of Kamala Harris’s charms is her easy laugh and ability to poke fun at Trump without sounding vicious or vindictive. Since Trump is always vicious and vindictive, this provides a great contrast between a normal human enjoying herself and an angry old man incapable of taking a joke.

It’s a useful tactic if used judiciously and as a way to call out his often absurd lies and statements when they get really outrageous. So far Harris has walked that line very well, probably because beneath her smiling and contagious laugh is a thick-skinned legal prosecutor who developed her toughness under fire.

Over the years she has endured a lot of nastiness, both for some of her views and actions as a prosecutor and because she is a multi-racial woman in a man’s world. But that man’s world is breaking apart and that really scares many Republicans who are largely older white men. We can see it in their flailing approach to attacking Harris.

They’ve played the race card. They’ve played the ‘traditional role of women’ thing, Vance’s bumbling specialty. And, led by Trump, they have tried the playground bully tactics and insults. But so far those attacks have backfired on them. A primary example is how Vance’s statements about childless or single women have attracted a huge amount of publicity.

But it is not in Vance’s favor. Instead he is revealed as a weird troglodyte figure with some really outdated notions about women. It’s publicity but it’s not good publicity for him or his ticket and serves to reinforce the weirdness factor found all over the Republican MAGA right.

The important thing here is to let the public and media castigate Trump and Vance by using their own words against them and keep the Democrats focused on the message of looking forward instead of back, touting accomplishments (Trump has none), and continuing the comparison between experienced prosecutor and convicted felon.

The last factor, Trump’s criminal convictions and trials, may have been stalled by Judges playing politics, but he still faces sentencing for the fraud felonies he has already been convicted of later in September. The courts were given more time to factor in the broad immunity a right wing Supreme Court granted him for official acts.

But the acts he was convicted of were not official acts and many took place before he was actually elected President, so it is likely the court will go ahead with the sentencing and the timing may play into the Democrat’s hands, reminding the voting public once again that the man is a convicted shyster.

The actual enforcing of whatever sentence is handed down will be stalled, possibly for years, by appeals, so it will be largely symbolic. But the publicity will give the Democrat attack machine another solid opportunity to not only portray him as weird, but as a dangerous weirdo, especially if he regains power.

Frankly, I think many swing voters will probably find his antics tiresome reruns of the same old whining and victimhood, especially since they are now contrasted with the fresh energy and positive messages of Kamala Harris. We are seeing it already as polling is showing her gaining on or even getting ahead of Trump in the polls.

She will also get a boost from her choice of a running mate in the next week or so. She has an exceptionally strong roster of candidates, all of whom can bring needed states and independent voter blocs into play for her.

All of this will get more powerful as the Republicans continue to struggle to find a message that sticks. So far they only have insults and implied racism and misogyny, in part because they have no political successes to tout other than tax cuts for the very wealthy and fear-mongering over crime and immigration. Scare tactics and promises made to attract wealthy donors but not things that will expand their voter base.

But for now, I think the weirdo strategy is a useful campaign tool if used judiciously and with humor.

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