Democrats in America have landed on a new attack line that has seen Republicans struggling to respond: Calling Donald Trump and his party ‘weird’.

Before Kamala Harris took the nomination from Joe Biden, Democrats were on the defensive about his age and mental acuity, but the vice president has now turned the table on Republicans.

“Some of what he and his running mate are saying, it’s just plain weird,” Harris said.

“I mean, that’s the box you put that in, right?”

Her campaign has also latched onto the labelling by claiming that JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick, had a “weird night on Fox News” after comments he made about “childless cat ladies” having too much power resurfaced.

And, in a news release following Trump’s appearance on Fox News, it released a press release that included “Trump is old and quite weird?” as a bullet point.

Democrats online have highlighted how Republicans have struggled to address it, with SuperPACs, a funding vehicle in United States elections, creating ads to amplify the messaging.

Origin

Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota and a potential VP pick for Harris, helped launch the attack after repeating that Republicans are weird in multiple interviews and speeches.

“I see Donald Trump talking about the wonderful Hannibal Lecter or whatever weird thing he is on tonight,” he said on MSNBC

“That is weird behaviour. I don’t think you call it anything else.”

Minnesota Governor and potential VP pick Tim Walz has helped popularise the labelling of Republicans as weird. Photo: Getty

It has launched him into contention to vice president, alongside his history of growing up in a small, midwestern town, his service in the National Guard and his former career as a school teacher, with Harris’s campaign flagging an August 7 deadline for choosing a running mate.

When CNN asked Walz about the remark, he said: “It’s an observation because being a schoolteacher I see a lot of things”.

The origin of the attack, however, may pre-date Walz.

Edward-Isaac Dovere, a political reporter, wrote in his 2021 book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump that Harris, if she won the Democratic nominee in 2020, planned to ask Trump “Why are you being so weird? What’s wrong with you?” if he stalked her onstage like he did to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential debates.

Response

So far, Republicans have struggled to respond to the label, albeit not for a lack of trying.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican nomination who has endorsed and stumped for Trump, said that “this whole ‘they’re weird’ argument from the Democrats is dumb and juvenile”.

“This is a presidential election, not a high school prom queen contest,” he said on X.

“It’s also a tad ironic coming from the party that preaches diversity and inclusion.”

Vance has tried to flip the script, by calling a speech about climate anxiety by Harris “really weird stuff”.

“It’s almost like these people don’t want young people starting families or something,” he said.

Harris has been polling strongly in swing states, marking a serious change in fortunes compared to Biden’s faltering campaign just a month ago.