Democrats have recently begun adopting a fresh new line of attack on Republicans: quite simply, calling them weird.
In a press release Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign responded to an appearance by former President Donald Trump on Fox News.
Under a bulleted list of “main takeaways” from Trump’s appearance was one that quickly captured the public’s attention: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”
After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.
“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “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.”
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also picked up on it. In an X post on Thursday, he shared a clip of a 2021 speech by Sen. JD Vance, in which the now–Republican vice presidential nominee said Americans without children should not get “nearly the same voice” in elections as those who do have children.
“This is quite weird,” Schatz wrote. “Like, a very very bad idea, but also weird. And presumably, unpopular.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The calling Republicans “weird” strategy conspicuously stands apart from the Democrats’ usual “when they go low, we go high” modus operandi.
Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist and former Biden administration official, told ABC News she expects it will be an effective message that cuts straight to the heart of the matter.
“I think the instinct that Democrats have too often is that if we just reason with the other side, and if we just talk about our policies and we explain why we’re right and they’re wrong, that quote-unquote ‘logic’ will win out — but that’s not how the world works anymore,” Legacki said.
By leaning into the messaging, Democrats can set themselves apart from Republicans, whose focus on anti-LGBTQ policies and limiting reproductive rights has been “off-putting to a lot of normal American people,” Legacki said.
“I think it’s really elegant in its simplicity,” she added. “And I think it really reflects a newer way of thinking and campaigning and just calling it what it is.”
Jesse Lee, a former senior official in the Biden and Obama White Houses, told ABC News that Republicans’ hard-right stances on social issues could alienate voters.
“Trump and MAGA have gone so far down their own rabbit holes, only listening to their own news, blindly believing whatever the loudest extremists say, that their positions really are genuinely weird to anybody back in reality,” Lee said.
Lee pointed to Project 2025, the playbook of staunchly conservative policy proposals penned by at least two dozen members of Trump’s administration and allies. Trump has sought to distance himself from the project, though many of the proposals align with that of his official campaign.
“Project 2025 is a 900 page Weirdo Manifesto, windmills don’t cause cancer, NASCAR drivers shouldn’t take over the military, and women have the right to control their own bodies, have kids or not have kids, and not have their lives micromanaged by a man who brags about grabbing them wherever he wants,” Lee added. “It’s not just weird, it’s creepy.”
