I really don’t think that’s it, I think that all these news orgs are missing the point. “They’re a threat to democracy” isn’t entertaining. And guess what shows up on social media sites? Entertainment. The reason trump got popular was because people (American public in general) do not care about politics. But trump isn’t politics. He’s entertainment. “Weird” is working for the same exact reason that he became popular… it’s entertaining. It’s catchy, it can move up people’s social media feeds. It is pushed by the algorithms on all these apps and sites. “Threat to democracy” is never going to be the top comment on an article about Jeff goldblum eating a potato in socks. “Weird” is. And with that, it’s immediately in the minds of every person that cares about the entertainment value.
Not throwing shade, but isn’t that the point and why they chose ‘weird’ specifically for the campaign?
And it’s spot on: they are weird.
It happened a bit more organically than an active choice; Walz started doing it well before it was clear that Biden would drop out, and it caught on.
I really don’t think that’s it, I think that all these news orgs are missing the point. “They’re a threat to democracy” isn’t entertaining. And guess what shows up on social media sites? Entertainment. The reason trump got popular was because people (American public in general) do not care about politics. But trump isn’t politics. He’s entertainment. “Weird” is working for the same exact reason that he became popular… it’s entertaining. It’s catchy, it can move up people’s social media feeds. It is pushed by the algorithms on all these apps and sites. “Threat to democracy” is never going to be the top comment on an article about Jeff goldblum eating a potato in socks. “Weird” is. And with that, it’s immediately in the minds of every person that cares about the entertainment value.