US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.
In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”.
“I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.
I know they don’t want to use words like ‘senility’ and ‘dementia’ because of Biden, but come on. He’s not running now and he’ll only be president for a few more months.
I’m on the fence for using dementia or senility. In fact I think I prefer the ‘weird’ reference more than the other two, if for no other reason than there is no proof he is … but ‘weird’ covers a fair portion of what he is/does.
Bonus points if they start incorporating ‘convicted felon’ as the campaign progresses.
This is politics. It doesn’t really matter if he’s got dementia, it just matters if he’s perceived as having dementia.
That language could backfire a little right now, but hopefully they do pull this out closer to election.