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https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-election-turned-weird-and-why-its-working-for-the-democrats-235874>
"The Democrats have discovered a secret sauce in their campaign against Donald
Trump and the MAGA mob — suddenly media headlines are splashed with references
to “weird”. For example:
* How Trump and Vance went from a ‘threat to democracy’ to “weird’
* Suddenly, the Election Is About Weird vs. Normal
* J.D. Vance says feelings not hurt by ‘weird’ insult from Democrats.
The label "weird” – while established in this campaign by newly minted
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz – had already made a few
earlier memorable appearances.
Notably, in 2017, at the end of Trump’s inauguration speech, George W. Bush was
famously reported as describing the new GOP reality as “weird shit”. This new
reality coincided with Merriam-Webster’s choice of “surreal” as the Word of the
Year (defined as “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream”). These
editors base their Word of the Year selections on what sends people to the
dictionary — and “surreal” had major spikes in look-ups following the election
result.
Words are reality-describing-and-creating tools. Whether you think Trump and
the modern GOP have created a “weird” reality will depend on your politics. But
the Democrats have scored a linguistic rare win by describing them as “weird”.
Why does it work? We show here that “weird” is a spicy cocktail of emotional
framing, destiny and red meat politics."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
