The GOP needs to convince voters that Donald Trump and JD Vance are regular guys, and, manifestly, they are not.

It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being “weird” if it weren’t true. But those men are getting weirder by the day.

Former president Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), is off to a wobbly start. A Harris 2024 campaign email sent on Friday was headlined, “JD Vance Is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide).” The statement continued, “JD Vance is weird. Voters know it – Vance is the most unpopular VP pick in decades.”

It was bad enough when footage resurfaced of a 2021 interview in which Vance called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” Things got worse last week when Vance offered a non-apology, blaming “people” for “focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said.”

Uh, okay, but that doesn’t help at all. The substance — which Vance said he stands by — is asserting that adults without children do not deserve an equal say  in the nation’s affairs. Another unearthed clip of Vance showed him arguing that parents, when they vote, should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age. He didn’t take that back, either, going only so far as to claim it was a “thought experiment” and not a firm policy position.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Using “weird” is so absurd, the GQP would claim the same headline of their opposition. It does nothing but dumb down the argument, but maybe it does need to be dumbed down for people susceptible to bigotry and stereotypes.

    • warbond@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Using “absurd” is so strange. It does nothing but dumb down the argument, but maybe it does need to be dumbed down for people susceptible to bigotry and stereotypes.

      • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Sorry bud, but weird just isn’t an insult. Weird Al Yankovic, for example. In fact, I can perfectly see people wearing “Old and weird” and actually being proud of it. There’s no shortage of old people wearing edgy T-shirts, specially in the Trump crowd. But thanks for proving my point, the argument clearly has been dumbed down to the preschool level of just parroting things with minor ineffective alterations in an attempt to mock them.

    • TheKMAP@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      There was a recent article titled “look at these fucking weirdos” where they address this. It explains that they are the bad kind of weird.

  • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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    10 months ago

    There’s no way anybody’s ear, especially at that age, healed that fucking fast without any scab or scar. It takes me two weeks just to get rid of a paper cut.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Where do you get the idea it did? All I’ve seen is an incredibly low res picture that doesn’t prove anything

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      So you don’t think the spray tan teeth whitening scalp reduction diaper baby healed naturally?

  • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    So let’s just imagine they pass a law where people get an extra vote for their kid, which parent gets the vote? Or does each parent get an extra? Because that wouldn’t make sense. Not that any of it did in the first place

    • Flying_Hellfish@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      No no, only the husband will get to cast the vote for his children. No accounting for non-traditional relationships, because JD doesn’t count them.

      • LouNeko@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Man gets the vote for election, woman gets the kid after divorce. Sound only fair to me /s.

  • dumples@midwest.social
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    10 months ago

    Donald Trump is a weird old man and shouldn’t be running for president. He should drop out

    • Zanathos@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      He’s too narcissistic to drop out and admit defeat. He agreed to the debate of Biden knowing he’d win, now he’s dancing around trying not to reach the podium again to debate Harris because he knows he’ll lose. He only plays to win, and he’s in such deep shit legally that he has to stay in the running. His backs against a wall now.

  • parents, when they vote, should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age

    And so it was that Vance was elected to the newly established office of Emperor by his own sole vote, after having symbolically adopted all of America’s unborn children. When asked for comment, he was quoted as saying ”Leave your couches unwrapped at the roadside, DC, I’m coming.”

      • MermaidsGarden@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I’ve had it up to here with people saying JD Vance had sex with a couch. How many times do I have to say there’s no evidence JD Vance had sex with a couch before people stop saying JD Vance had sex with a couch? Liberals must be pretty desperate to make up that JD Vance had sex with a couch. The story that on March 17, 2011 JD Vance was banned from a Cleveland area IKEA after so thoroughly deflowering a KIVIK Sofa Chaise that it had to be removed as a biohazard due to the various fluids in and around it, causing the night manager to not only quit but need intensive therapy is beyond the pale. Who would believe this? There is sworn. court. testimony. that JD Vance has not made bare skin contact with a couch within the past 5 years. That’s a fact. Look it up. The idea that this is because JD Vance cannot contain his overwhelming sexual urges in the presence of soft furniture is reckless conjecture. Calling JD Vance a couchfucker is slander and you need to take it back.

        The Left™ will do anything to avoid talking about the real issues in this campaign, like the fact that Kamala Harris laughs sometimes.

        • Machinist@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Wait. So did he actually fuck a couch for real? Pretty sure the other one fucked/molested his daughter. I wouldn’t be surprised, I’m just genuinely curious, keep seeing this and am not sure where it comes from.

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Ya and wealthy white families totally won’t steal/buy poor and minority children to increase their voting power…

    • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      In the Republic of JD, everyone votes for President Daddy.

      Here are some fun facts about President Daddy:

      As a baby, he never cried and his poop didn’t stink.

      President Daddy took 2 wives to help repopulate the Democrat wasteland.

      President Daddy made January 9th a holiday to commemorate the purchase anniversary of his favorite couch.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    He didn’t take that back, either, going only so far as to claim it was a “thought experiment” and not a firm policy position.

    Ah, the old “I was just running my mouth” defense.

    • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Look, I run my mouth all the time… but I’m also not running for Vice President. I am a white dude, so there is a non zero chance that the Harris team might reach out to me at some point before the convention, but I doubt it.

    • Johnmannesca@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Is this just so he can talk more rancid shit about “wellfare queens”? It seems like it would only hurt his stance since he hates the poors.

  • RebiJes@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    The top leadership is all “degenerates” by their own standards. I find this particularly ironic, because one of the biggest points of contention between red and blue is whether to be accepting of weirdness. The red aren’t. But that doesn’t stop them from being just as weird. They are just in denial.

  • LouNeko@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    America is raised on celebrities and symbolism. They have the biggest media companies in the world. Idolizing singular individuals, putting them on a pedestal is what they do. It always has to be black or white, good vs evil, like in the movies. They want the good guy to win and get the girl. The art of american politics is to convince more than 50% of people that you’re the good guy and the other candidate is the bad guy.

    That’s why the rest of he world is looking at the US election as entertainment. A circus and freak show in one.

    It has the narrative of a Hollywood movie with real life consequences for people.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Does anyone else feel like the weird argument falls short. I don’t feel like any of the people I know who like trump mind being called weird. They are some of the weirdest people I know anyway. I think they are used to it

    • MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yes, but the gravity of the full extent of theit danger to the country hasn’t been relatable enough for the general public. Now call them weird and suddenly people can relate. Democrats have been trying to talk about the forest, when all they needed to do was plant the seed. “Yeah you know what, what he said is weird, what’s up with that…and now that you mention it, what else have they been up to”

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      It’s good because it’s purely subjective. The entire problem thus far has been that factional arguments, like “Trump is an authoritarian” and “Trump tried to start an insurrection” end up getting cast as subjective “alternative facts” anyway. The “weird” thing gets straight to the point and kind of short circuits the entire alternative facts thing. It’s also “mild” enough that it doesn immediately elicit a defensive response like calling someone a fascist does.

      This all adds up to creating a crack in the rhetorical wall. “Yeah, Trump is kind of weird isn’t he?” Instead of digging in, it actually lowers the guard a bit, and helps breaks people out of the echo chamber.

    • Asifall@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Maybe, but nobody cares when you call them facists so I’m not sure what the best move is.

      I do actually think the weirdness argument does probably play to the suburban traditional values types who want to believe they’re the normal ones and everyone else is going crazy.

      • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Exactly. Conservatives hold as their highest values, conformity, compliance, cohesion, authority, sanctity, and tradition. They love adhering to their established norms and standards rather than challenging them. They defer to those whom they view to be in a position of authority. They have lines they do not want crossed, things they hold sacred. To be called “weird” is to be called as existing outside the norm.

        • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          It also works because they are in the minority, it counters the outsized voice brought by all the political bs. (Side note: isn’t it so weird we use an electoral college, all the other democracies have come up with more effective ways to make sure all voices are represented in government)

          • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            We literally created the Electoral College as DEI for slave states. It went hand-in-hand with the infamous “3/5ths Compromise” that allowed slavers to cast ballots in the names of their slaves, so slavers could cast as many votes as they had slaves.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      They try not to show that they care.

      But they definitely do. Trump has basically tantrums if people say he has “weirdly small hands”

    • na_th_an@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      They are some of the weirdest people, but they don’t realize it. That’s why it’s effective. They think they’re the normal true real America, and everyone else is weird.