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.
The kind of weird you embrace isn’t the kind of weird he is. He’d hate it even worse if we said he was your kind of weird. When he’s gone we can make weird great again.
“Don’t worry, we’re only gonna do this shitty thing for a little bit, we swear!” That’s not a reassurance, it’s just an excuse.
Calling out the weirdness of an objectively weird (and creepy, and megalomaniac, and venal, and abusive and dangerous) old man, who’s weird by choice and despite all his privileges, isn’t shitty.
It’s the hope that his brand of weirdness becomes irrelevant and forgotten that I was referring to, not saying there would ever be a time to stop naming it what it is, or feeling obliged to make excuses for it.
It absolutely is shitty. You’re not “calling out” trump & co. for some objective characteristic - you’re lumping everyone that’s ever been derided for being “weird”, bullied, and generally othered in with them for cheap political points. Your excuse that it’s only temporary is a hollow promise I expect even you don’t believe. The damage is to more than just one person, and that doesn’t get undone as soon as you decide you’ve had your fun and go home.