MAGA and Trump ARE Weird

Who Would've Thought Being Objective Would Pay Off So Well? I did.

I’m really turned off by hyperbole. I get how it is effective to market and brand yourself in superlatives, and make everything seem bigger than it is, but when people look at the hype and then look at reality, the hype rarely actually wins. People dimiss it as bullshit. They turn away from it. They don’t believe in it. It usually results in cynicism and backlash.

Which brings me to Trump. The guy is a walking, talking, repetitive chatty-Cathy doll of hyperbole. He takes the most outlandish statements about the most simplistic and obvious of things. In a way, it’s part of his character as a salesman. But it’s more than that to him; its his whole raison d’etre. He craves attention and eyeballs and press coverage like a junkie craves his next fix. He always has. He has to be the center of attention. He also understands you don’t get attention by stating the obvious in the most banal of ways, you have to make it seem more interesting. For him, hyperbole is the only means to that end.

So, it’s not that we have a problem with people crossing the border, IT’S A DISASTER! AN OUTRIGHT CRISIS! WE’RE OVERWHELMED BY CARAVANS! Kamala Harris isn’t just a typical California politician, SHE’S THE WORST! SHE’S A MARXIST! SHE PRESIDED OVER THE WORST CALAMITY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA! Inflation under Joe Biden wasn’t just bad (nor caused by COVID stimulus that started under Trump), IT”S THE HIGHEST ITS EVER BEEN! BIDENFLATION (as if it was an actual policy of Biden’s) WAS THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO THIS ECONOMY SINCE 1929! (Nevermind 9 of the 10 greatest single day drops happened under Trump, mostly associated with COVID shutdowns). You get the point.

For the most part, Republicans were relatively cool to him at first. They relegated him to that fringe pushing Obama conspiracies like birtherism. Then he announced his candidacy and gave one of the worst, most ridiculous, political speeches in American history. The media and the left’s heads collectively exploded and they started commenting relentlessly and HYPERBOLICALLY about what a horrible human being he was. THEY overreacted and gave fuel to a flame that otherwise would have smoldered to ashes before it began. In short, he angered the correct people on the left enough to strike a chord with a large contingent on the right. The right loved the BACKLASH. He stuck it to the libs! That’s been his appeal since day 1, and ever since.

Now, in my mind, the best response to Trump is to take your eyes off him. Everyone should have just packed up and stopped covering him. It’s what he hates the most. It’s what I said here over 7 months ago.

I bring this up because going into this election year, I hear the same old shit about Donald Trump and how fearful another four years of him are. How the media can’t stop covering him, whether it’s a rally, a trial, another indictment or just pictures of him at Mar-a-Lago. The NYT keeps interviewing Trump supporters trying to “understand” them (really, what’s to understand?) To be sure, the media’s better at pointing out his lies, at portraying him as a gaslighter, a fraud and a villain. Yet they continue to feed this beast by keeping him around. They report on him. ALL. THE. TIME. He barely campaigned in Iowa and the story was “Trump doesn’t campaign in Iowa!” J.F.C.

They shouldn’t. He’s old news. He’s like Spotify covering Dexy’s Midnight Runners as a great up and coming band in 2024. He’s passe, old hat, boring. He’s what your grandma listens to at the old folks home. If he had an accordian, he’d be the dancing monkey begging for tips. The news covered the Different Strokes kids after the show ended, committing crimes, going to jail, down on their luck, and it seemed tragic; with Trump the press makes it seem like his pecadillos are still headline news even though the Trump show was cancelled four years ago. He’s Derek Zoolander still trying to be relevant in a sequel but still can’t turn left.

Sure, he’s just won the Iowa Caucus and seems destined to cruise to the Republican Nomination. But seriously, no one in the GOP nowadays is what I would consider a trendsetter, and everything on FOX News and within the GOP silos seems more akin to a time machine from 25 years ago than pertinent in this day and age. I mean, one of their biggest pundits was a pillow salesman for crying out loud. That doesn’t exactly scream “online influencer.” The GOP is old and dying off, and are pushing buggy whips and big band in an era of fast cars and EDM. In that vein, Trump is their perfect candidate; a horse that is long in the tooth and should be sold to a glue factory. Meanwhile, every geriatric octogenarian is yelling “giddy-up” at a clop pace.

I get the urge to roll down the window and yell “Get the F**k off the road,” but it’s just easier to pass them by and move on. What do we do with has-beens and culturally irrelevant wannabes? We ignore them.

But that’s not what most of the left did. They talked, and continue to talk, about THE TRUMP FASICST THREAT! They tried to get Joe Biden to do a Weekend at Bernies playing down his age because TRUMP IS GOING TO TURN AMERICA INTO NAZISM! IT WILL BE LIKE GERMANY 1933! WOMEN ARE GOING TO BE TREATED LIKE IN THE HANDMAIDS TALE! PROJECT 2025 IS GOING TO END FREE ELECTIONS! OH MY GOD, THE SKY IS FALLING! They keep giving oxygen to the worst fires on the right.

The other thing they did was repeatedly and expressly offer their comedic sarcasm towards him, or what I refer to as the “Boggart Solution” from Harry Potter. Just mock him and make him look ridiculous. That doesn’t work so well either, because it still gives him attention. From the same article:

Trump was kicked off Twitter for years, relegated to venting on his network, “Truth Social”; that didn’t stop him, because people screenshot his posts there onto Twitter and other networks and were like “Look at this! What a buffoon! He’s losing it again.” But by doing that you give power to him by still acknowledging Trump’s still there. The monster under the bed, the creep hiding in the closet, the media attention he craves, the energy he needs and eyeballs that fuels his mojo. It’s what his fans want too, to hear liberals whine and cry about the big, fearful monster that has them so up in a tizzy. Like the 3rd grade bullies they are, they love to mock those who seem fearful; and they get empowered by the attention.

And the media covering his crowds don’t do any favors either. Sure there is a fascination with the stupidity and ignorance on display at any Trump rally, but all that was around long before Trump showed up, and we rightfully relegated it to the trailer park or crazy town revivals where they belonged. When Trump came along it went maintstream and for some reason we can’t avert our eyes as if it were a freak show or circus curiosity.

So this week, someone tried something that hasn’t seem to have been tried before, and not only did it work, it made Trump look small, puny and powerless. I hadn’t seen that since Obama dressed him down at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2015. What happened? Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota just called him and the whole MAGA movement, “Weird.” That’s it really. It was objective truth staring everyone in the eye and perfectly encapsulated Trump and his whole movement. Weird. Simple. Over. Now let’s move on.

And people took a step back from the hyperbole and said, “Yeah, you know what, he is weird. Kind of loony really.” They reassessed the whole race with a single word. It diffused 9 whole years of nonstop ridiculousness and hyperbolic antagonism and just felt like common sense. Nobody wanted to listen to Trump anymore. Nobody cared what crazy shit MAGA was saying. It’s like, people are moving on, changing the channel and finding something else to be entertained by that isn’t so…weird. Hammer, meet nail in coffin.

Who could’ve predicted it? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I did. Same article.

I assure you, Donald Trump is not going to be President again. He’s a cartoon character people like to watch. He’s Elmer Fudd. At some point, this same old schtick gets redundant, old, and tired, and you grow up moving on to watch more important things. You can only watch so many times before you know sooner or later the Coyote is going to fall off the cliff or Bugs is going to get the better of Elmer or Daffy….So America, it’s time to grow up. Stop watching this senseless fare and turn the channel. Ignore Trump. Just like Nancy did [to Freddy] in [A Nightmare on] Elm Street. It’s what we should have done a long time ago. Let’s end this national nightmare and just move forward to something better already.

Tim Walz, congratulations. You did something the media and most of America have wanted done the past 9 years. You shut up Donald Trump and put him in his place. Bravo. Take a bow. Now let’s get to business and talk about moving forward.

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

To be sure, being “weird” is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it can set you apart, make you unique. When too many people do the same weird thing though, it becomes cliche and everyone looks around and asks “why did we ever start this weird shit?” That’s not how Walz meant it though. He meant, they’re “just plain f++king nuts” kinda weird.

But there is one guy who is an afficiando of weird, and that is “Weird” Al Yankovic. Yes, that great purveyor of parody songs has a pretty solid reputation. Getting his start on the “Dr. Demento” show will certainly give you some cache with the weird crowd. But he has continued this career of him for over 45 years now and it never seems to get old. He’s so good that he actually wrote an autobiography that got turned into a movie starring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe (who is GREAT as Weird Al). What makes the movie a riot though, aside from the fact that it parodizes all of the typical musical biopic tropes, is that HE is the unique, original entertainer and EVERYONE ELSE WAS RIPPING HIM OFF. It’s perfection.

As for my favorite Weird Al Parody, it has to be “Amish Paradise.” Leave your favorite Weird Al parody in the comments!

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

I googled “Weird obscure facts” and this was the first one that popped up.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

“That was some weird shit.”

-George W. Bush commenting on Trump’s Inauguration Speech

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff