How to Wield “Weird”

By Steve Schlich — Tim Walz was not the first to label Donald Trump “weird.” That honor falls to, of all people, George W. Bush…describing Trump’s blistering 2017 inaugural speech famous for the phrase “American Carnage.” But Walz, now running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket, put it back into play. Rumor has it that he earned his Veep slot doing so.

But “weird” hasn’t been used much lately, and that’s a shame. It’s such an apt and easy word to apply. I think it could be a powerful weapon. With that in mind, I’d like to make some suggestions, ideally for the September 10th debate.

Border Game

It won’t take Trump long to spew his usual gibberish about Harris failing in her imaginary border czar position. Forget that she was actually assigned to investigate how to make the countries that immigrants are leaving more attractive. And I wish anyone good luck with that, in Venezuela. 

Here’s how I envision her punching back:

“That’s weird, you complaining about inaction on the border situation. Just last year, Democrats agreed to a border bill designed by your own party. It became a bipartisan effort, and the beginning of a real border solution.

“But you convinced those very same Republicans to reject their own work because passage of that bill would make Democrats look good. It would have made Republicans look good too, you know. 

“But they voted it down, because King Donald said so. That’s weird, because now it just makes Republicans look bad.”

There is way more to the issue, both byzantine and baffling: the bill began as a Republicans-only effort in May 2023 and in 2024 morphed into a section of a Mitch McConnell-sponsored Ukraine support package. But in the end, even McConnell voted against it.

And the problem with spending so much time taking down Trump is that it takes away from the message of optimism and light that’s at the appealing heart of Kamala Harris’s candidacy. So maybe the weirdness campaign is best left to Walz and other surrogates.

Coward in Chief

To praise a Commander in Chief who thinks that wounded and dead soldiers—heroes who gave their last measure of devotion to their country—are “suckers and losers” is not just weird, it’s shameful. And this Commander in Chief was clueless enough to say it out loud.

That’s what President Trump Private Bonespurs told General John Kelly while standing at Kelly’s son’s grave, on Memorial Day 2017 in Arlington National Cemetery; and what he told aides while refusing to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris, in 2018. 

And of course, what he now denies ever saying.

The man’s a thoughtless pig. But who’s actually weird? General Kelly who later became his Chief of Staff, and his supporters who listen to this shit and cheer him on. While claiming to be patriots.

And of couse, it has gotten weirder…

On August 26, Donald Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried, and posed for his campaign photograher in a section where campaign photograhy is prohibited. 

In the picture published in a Washington Post article, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the graves of Marines. Several others in the party, some of whom are clearly disabled veterans, are also giving a thumbs-up. Wow!

A cemetery staffer told the group to stop with the campaign photos, citing the federal law prohibiting the activity, and was pushed aside. The altercation made news and Trump’s people just had to double down: spokesman Steven Cheung referred to the staffer as someone “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” 

It’s the Trump campaign that is clearly suffering from a projection episode.

The visit to Arlington was a campaign stop intended to court the military vote, no question. In lieu of an apology, Trump stuck to the original plan: he criticized the Biden Administration for the disaster that was the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A disaster? That’s a fact. Here are a few more, culled from a Comment following a Washington Post article on the subject:

Afghanistan Withdrawal Facts (Source: Occupy Democrats):

Trump, not Biden…

• Negotiated directly with the Taliban terrorists and excluded the Afghan army.
• Drew down US forces from 13,000 to 2,500, making them vulnerable to attack.
• Ordered the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, one of whom would become the new leader of Afghanistan.
• Wanted to invite the Taliban leaders to Camp David on the anniversary of September 11th. Seriously.
• Agreed to a May 1st exit from Afghanistan, then bragged that he didn’t need an exit strategy.
• Refused to brief Biden’s incoming team on the situation in Afghanistan.
• Shut down every airbase in Afghanistan except one, crippling the US’s ability to extract its assets safely.

This has been weird for years… 

Failed businessman Donald Trump selling himself as a success. He sold his name to a lot of buildings that he did not build, and during his presidency numerous buildings tore his name off. When’s the last time he actually built anything? Most of his border construction as POTUS was actually spent repairing existing walls.

You may recall that a $100-ish reciprocating saw that you can get at any hardware store easily cuts through the wall’s metal bollards. So Trump’s vaunted barrier really only stops animals trying to cross a man-made political line in search of food. Not just weird; cruel and thoughtless.

Disclosure: I rode the Weird Wagon myself. 

Just a few months ago, Kamala Harris was considered by some to be a drag on the 2024 Democratic ticket. The logic went: his Veep would become President when Biden died or became incapacitated during his second term, and America wasn’t ready for a female of color to lead the country. I watched the Trump campaign spend some effort running against Harris as well as Biden.

So much for them not being ready for Harris’s candidacy. Shamefully, I have to admit worrying about that myself, looking back on her failed presidential run in 2019-20. She tanked before Iowa! So much for the supposed liberalism of Democrats who argued for dropping her from the ticket. In my defense, I was certain that would be a very stupid move. Now look at us all!

Born Again on Abortion

Trump decided to abort the consistent losses Republicans have been suffering at the box office since the Supreme Court took down Roe v. Wade and red states immediately began passing laws that restrict abortion to the time before a woman even knows she’s pregnant. Voters in even reliably red states like Kansas made changes to their constitutions that protect women’s reproductive rights.

So Donald did a flip-flop and declared that now he supports women’s reproductive rights…which he also supported during the 90s. Now he claims that he would veto that nationwide abortion ban his evangelical support have been pursuing all these years. Republicans even stripped the concept from their 2024 platform…making the entire party supporters of Choice. 

Trump has an annoying habit of covering all sides of an issue, most recently evidenced by his flip-flop on Amendment 8 in Florida, supporting that absurd 6-week abortion ban the he so recently criticized.

Trump proudly brags to his base about appointing three Supreme Court justices who voted to repeal Roe v. Wade. But now, after watching Republicans lose election after election on the issue of abortion, he’s trying to cast himself as a defender of women’s rights. I, for one, wonder how many abortions of his own children he has funded over the years.

So tell me, evangelicals: how weird is it for you to support a convicted felon, adulterer and liar who supports Choice when it’s convenient? You folks who keep calling Democratic Presidents the Anti-Christ, how weird does it look for you to be supporting someone who actually fits that description fairly well?

Birds of a Feather

Bobby Kennedy Junior. An honorable reputation nurtured by years of dedicated environmental lawyering overpowered by strange obsessions. A life gone weird…a severed whale head dripping gore from the roof of your car, a baby bear roadkill dumped in Central Park, a worm eating his brain and an emu chasing his wife around the back yard.

To, ahem, butcher the credit card commercial slogan: What’s in your freezer? Just when you thought Trump’s team couldn’t get any weirder, they took all that on.

. . .

I’ve gotten rather far afield of my orginal purpose: how to use “Weird” to torture Trump. The need for it is clear: the man is a master rule breaker, and an accidental genius to do it all in plain sight. He’s normalized his behavior, and invited everyone else’s worst angels along for the ride. 

It’s the job of “Weird” to reverse that, to return Trump’s acts to where they belong, to Abnormal. To Unacceptable. To Weird. Really, it’s our job. 

What can you do? An unknown internet artist and I gave Trump’s infamous mug shot that started this essay the Shepard Fairey treatment. Pass that around, for starters. Talk up Weird. Plaster it everywhere. Do you remember what the gay community did on the internet with Rick Santorum’s surname? Look up how. The power exists, if enough of us use it. 

Wield “Weird” every chance you get, and we can return Trump’s perversion of normality to the freak show where it belongs!

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