The whole "they're weird" thing seems to be getting under the Republicans' skin.
J. D. Vance took the opportunity in an interview with Dana Bash a couple of days ago to object to the characterization, saying the whole thing is happening only because Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are "uncomfortable with their policy positions."
"They’re name-calling instead of actually telling the American people how they’re going to make their lives better," said Vance, whose running mate didn't comment because he was too busy shaking his fist and shouting at Crazy Kambala, Sleepy Joe, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, Gavin Newscum, Shifty Adam Schiff, Deranged Jack Smith, Crooked Hillary, and Pocahontas.
The thing is, a great many of the most fervent Trump supporters are weird. Dangerously so. Take two just from the past week, which are good examples but hardly the only ones. The first is from the program Flashpoint on wildly popular evangelical Christian Kenneth Copeland's Victory Channel. Copeland has been a consistent and vocal supporter of Donald Trump, which still strikes me as bizarre given that Trump's main claim to fame is embodying all Seven Deadly Sins in a single person. But if you think that's strange, the pronouncement made by "Prophet Joseph Z" on Flashpoint a few days ago is more peculiar still.
In fact, Joseph Z seems to be so far from reality that he would not be able to see it even if you handed him a powerful telescope.
Here's what Joseph Z said about vice presidential nominee Tim Walz:
I believe very clearly the spirit of the Lord is making a way for the body of Christ to go through in this time. And you know even when we bring up guys like Tim Walz and look at what’s going on, people say he’s you know midwestern folksy, I have another word for him, being from Minnesota myself, and it’s weird. The guy’s just weird. You see the way he hugs his wife. You see the way he does everything. I believe the Spirit of the Lord is letting them overextend their reach. I believe he’s giving them a sense of confidence that’s actually going to be a surprise silver lining turnaround in this whole narrative. I believe the spirit of the Lord is going to bring victory and breakthrough. And you know it’s interesting how the spirit of Antichrist just loves to pick these people that fit right in with the wicked overlord lizard mafia that is really driven by their goblin masters, and when you’re looking at this, I believe that’s exactly what we’re facing right now—a spirit of Antichrist that wants to have its way.
Sure! Of course! Goblin masters and the lizard mafia! But Tim Walz is the weird one, we promise!
You would think that after something like that, the moderator would have realized that it sounded like lunacy ('cuz it is), and would have been at least a little embarrassed, or inclined to backpedal on what had just been said in order to reassure listeners.
You would be wrong.
Instead, the moderator, Gene Bailey, vouched for Joseph Z's credibility, and said "we take what we put on the air very seriously." Not a hint of "... but this dude is nuttier than squirrel shit."
The second one revolves around Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025 and author of Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, both of which should scare the absolute hell out of everyone who's not to the right of Attila the Hun. The Trump campaign has finally acknowledged that Roberts and Project 2025 are dangerously extreme ('cuz they are), and have tried to distance themselves from it -- with Trump saying publicly that he had no idea who put the plan together, despite the fact that 140 of the collaborators on the project worked for his administration, and six were Cabinet members.
Of course, he also swore that he had never met Roberts in his life:
To say the content of Dawn's Early Light is one long paean to paranoid fascism is, if anything, an understatement. America is in peril, Roberts says, because of "pantsuited girlboss advertising executives, Skittle-haired they/them activists, soy-faced pajama-clad work-from-home HR apparatchiks, Adderall-addicted dog mom diversity consultants, nasally-voiced Ivy League regulatory lawyers, obese George Soros-funded police abolitionist district attorneys, [and] hipster trust fund socialists." He decries what he perceives as the loss of Christian hegemony in the United States (despite the fact that around seventy percent of Americans still self-identify as Christian, and in some parts of the country it's damn near impossible to get elected unless you do). Mankind, he says, "is made to worship, and our republic depends on the moral strength and habits of heart brought about by piety." Before you get your hopes up that he might be including other religions in this assessment, it's explicitly stated that he's not talking about just any kind of piety, but a specific one. "American society is rooted in the Christian faith," he writes. "Certainly public institutions should not establish anything offensive to Christian morals under the guise of 'religious freedom' or 'diversity, equity, and inclusion.'"
You're free to worship as you choose, apparently, but you damn well better choose right.
How will he and his cronies accomplish all of this? Well, he's going to start with destroying "every Ivy League college, the FBI, the New York Times, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Department of Education, 80 percent of ‘Catholic’ higher education, BlackRock, the Loudoun County Public School System, the Boy Scouts of America, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Chinese Communist Party, and the National Endowment for Democracy."
This stuff is so extreme that I feel obliged to state for the record that I didn't make up any of these quotes. (If you're curious, he apparently singled out the Loudoun County Public Schools because of a rape case that he says was committed by a male student dressing like a female to access a girl's bathroom -- a claim that was not substantiated at the hearing.)
Now, don't @ me about how you're a Republican and you don't agree with this stuff. I'm sure that's true. I have conservative-leaning friends who probably would say the same. However, in this election, you need to realize that if you vote Republican you are empowering and legitimizing the people who do believe all of this, and who if elected will do their damndest to make sure it's all set in place.
The fact that there are people who have a conservative approach to governance doesn't bother me in the slightest; we may disagree, but we can discuss it civilly. But there is no discussion with people like Kenneth Copeland, Gene Bailey, and Kevin Roberts. They don't want to work with the opposition and come to consensus.
They want the opposition eradicated -- violently, if necessary.
I usually don't frame things so starkly, but this November we have a choice. One side of the ticket has inextricably allied itself with the extreme right-wing lunatic fringe, which is comfortable talking about the Antichrist's lizard mafia and Adderall-addicted dog mom diversity consultants, and act as if what they're saying is completely rational. The fact that "some members of the GOP don't believe this" is actually irrelevant, because they're not the ones who are going to come out on top if Donald Trump wins.
This fall we have a choice between sense and nonsense, between empowering reasonable policy and empowering lunacy. Whatever party you belong to, whatever your political leanings, there's nothing more to it than that.
I know which way I'm voting.
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