If you hadn’t heard, a big thing with Democratic rhetoric lately has been calling right-wing behaviors “ weird .“  I’ve heard some confusion and critique of this, so in this blog post I hope to unwrap why this technique is so effective for fighting fascistic rhetoric and actions.

My Background and Standpoint

As always, I’m coming at this as a former pastor’s kid who went on to become a communication scholar whose work focuses on stress, trauma, and conflict communication.

Note also that this is the discipline—communication studies—that emerged strongly after the world wars in an effort to figure out how things like the Holocaust happened.

We’re pretty dedicated to keeping that kind of thing from happening again.

Being Aware of How Fascistic Creep Happens

So I came into this period of history, as I’ve described before, with my eyes wide open to the fascistic direction things were taking.

I knew, from my studies in my PhD in the discipline, that one of the things that happens with a move toward fascism is that effect that everyone talks about when a frog boils. You know, how the water gets warm so gradually that all of a sudden the frog is boiling without noticing it.

Yeah, that.

Whether or not this story accurately represents the way frogs react to being boiled, it certainly is accurate of how fascism creeps into the mainstream.

Definitely Not Subtle—But Effective

The irony of this is that it doesn’t necessarily feel all that subtle, as fascism also tends to use the shock and awe “waterfall approach,” which gains acceptance through doing so many outrageous and awful things all at once that people get tired of trying to counter them.

Ultimately, awful things begin to seem normal simply because so many of them are happening all around all the time.

In Which Awful Things Start to Become More Mainstream

Thus we get to where what just a few years ago was on the fringes of society—say, people overtly claiming to be Nazis—gradually and also strangely loudly creeps toward the center of both society and politics.

Obviously, in this kind of situation the opposition—i.e., reasonable people who don’t want people claiming to be Nazis to be at the center of society—gets mighty tired and discouraged.

After all, it seems to be particularly challenging to decenter these behaviors that the majority of people really would prefer to be marginal ones, because most of us would prefer a healthier world than when literal self-proclaimed Nazis and people who don’t seem to think Nazism being mainstream is an issue are mainstream and in way too many places of power.

And Yet One Word—Weird—Turns Out to Be Remarkably Effective

Enter Tim Walz calling the right wing’s behaviors weird.

It set just the right tone for the above situation.

A Word with Broad Application

First, as a friend recently pointed out, weird is a word everyone can relate to. Unlike sociopath or narcissist, it’s not a technical mental health term that people have a hard time getting their minds around.

Nope, the word weird is something everyone can understand.

Why the Rhetoric of Weird for Right-Wing Behaviors Is So Effective

And the left-wing use of the word weird is pretty perfect for this fascistic creep situation, because its particular use recenters weird, in the process remarginalizing the far-right.

In recentering weird to identify alt-right fascistic behaviors instead of diversity, this word mildly and softly reshifts society in a healthier direction.

Not Used for Identity Issues—Just Behavior

And note that when it’s being used it isn’t used to critique people’s identity markers that they can’t change—it’s being used to mark behavior, especially bullying behavior, that they can change.

It’s definitely a far cry from the bigoted insults being put out by the right, this use of the word weird. On the contrary, it gently recenters what is normal from the dumpster fire that is fascistic creep to highlight just how, well—odd—it is.

Normalizing the Non-Fascistic to Reduce the Power of Fascistic Rhetoric

And in doing so, it normalizes everything that is not fascistic.

With the use of the word weird in this way, suddenly everything the far-right thinks should be marginalized—kindness, acceptance and inclusion of others (I previously talked about this here), equity, diversity, expression of emotions, and so on and so forth, starts to feel and seem more normal and possible, even as the influence of the alt-right seems to shrink.

As one example, with this use of the word weird, being neurodivergent stops being weird, but mocking or bullying someone who is neurodivergent becomes seen as weird. As it should be!

It is a beautiful thing, this particular use of weird.

May we use the word well and responsibly.

A Final Charge

Go team #AssertiveSpirituality! Let’s continue to do what we can where we are with what we’ve got to keep speaking up against the toxic crap toward a healthier world for us all. We can do this thing.

Want to help keep this work going? It’s been 5 years of this project, and I finally have tip jars set up at Venmo and PayPal so you can help keep the lights on and such (THANK YOU for whatever you can do!). Here’s the info:

Venmo: @assertivespirituality

PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=Q2QWKELCNATBE

Looking for more resources toward speaking up for what’s right and dealing with the conflict that results?

Boy, do we have got a free “Assertive Spirituality Guide to Online Trolls” for you. It actually helps you with conflict both online and off. To get it, sign up for our email newsletter (either in the top bar or by checking the appropriate box when commenting on this article). Once you’ve confirmed your email address, we’ll send you the link to the guide in your final welcome email. You can unsubscribe at any time, but we hope you’ll stick around for our weekly email updates. As soon as we feasibly can we’re hoping to offer more online courses and other support resources for those advocating for the common good, and if you stay subscribed, you’ll be the first to know about these types of things when they pop up.

Want More Specific Help Applying This Kind of Thing? Message Me at the Assertive Spirituality Facebook Page.