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)”.
While this can’t be the only line of attack, it is a good one. Already, Trump seems to be having difficulty attacking Harris, as he has to work to continually suppress saying the most racist and sexist things he can think of. Imagine if he has to react to the ‘weird’ criticism by continually, on the fly, suppress some of his stranger speaking topics too. I’m guessing the mental load of doing that might put an amusing amount of strain on the old man. Imagine Trump, if the rallies weren’t fun for him anymore. How’s he going to recharge that narcissistic brain of his?