"Weird is really just the opposite of empathy": DNC delegates say what's off about MAGA is the hate

CHICAGO — When Vice President Kamala Harris's running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, called MAGA Republicans "weird," it's unlikely he knew he was kicking off a meme that would worm its way into the imaginations of millions of voters. He probably didn't even realize it would drive Donald Trump even more bonkers than usual. The word also made journalists a little nuts, because it lacks the specificity that every writer learns from an early age is supposedly necessary for clear communication. But it turns out "weird" is less vague than it is broad, with enough connotations to cover everything wrong about Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, from their speeches about electric sharks to their sniping about "childless cat ladies."

Walz hit the "weird" theme again during his speech Wednesday night. Describing Trump's agenda, he said, "Is it weird? Absolutely. But it’s also wrong. And dangerous." In contrast, he said, "When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people you love." Or more straightforwardly, to MAGA: "Mind your own damn business."

The Democratic National Convention offered an opportunity for Salon to ask Democratic voters directly why it resonates to hear Harris and Walz dismiss MAGA leadership as "weird." In one sense, the answers were all over the map, with people talking about everything from Project 2025 to the book-banning campaigns in states like Florida. But after an afternoon spent bugging Democratic delegates and other attendees to explain "weird," a theme emerged. Harris supporters used the word to describe not just the hateful motivations that fuel the MAGA movement but to express perplexity over why Trump and his minions waste so much energy attacking people whose only offense is being different than them.

"Everybody knows exactly what he meant when [Walz] called them weird, because the things they say just do not resonate with anybody anymore," Hawaii delegate Michael Gologuch Jr. told Salon.

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Nearly everyone Salon spoke with initially laughed when we asked about the word "weird." But then most folks immediately became thoughtful.

"Honestly, we could use probably bigger words like fascist," explained Ben Godfrey, a delegate from Washington who will turn 18 in time to vote for Harris. "But this isn't the RNC. This is the DNC," he added, arguing Democrats wanted to be more "positive" as a "contrast" to the vitriol coming from Republicans.

Especially baffling to the Democrats we spoke with was the MAGA fixation on controlling the personal decisions of others, especially women and LGBTQ people. One Idaho delegate named October flagged Vance's repeated insults of childless women. "As a childless cat lady. I just don't..... That's weird. It's weird," she said. "There's a lot of us and we vote."

Like many delegates, she was dressed in bright green. It's become the unofficial color of the Harris campaign, a tribute to the new album "brat" by British singer Charli XCX. With Charli's blessing, Harris supporters have invoked the album's "screw the haters" vibe as a rebuttal to the sexist and controlling ideology of the Trump campaign.

"It is weird how focused they are on the negative. It's weird how focused they are on women's bodies and the things we do with them," Elaine Haney of Vermont said.

"They want to restrict how people marry. They want to restrict how people identify and express themselves. They want to ban books just because they don't agree with the content. That's weird," Sean Michael, a delegate from Ohio, told Salon. "Why do they care? It's not their business."

Repeatedly, the delegates we spoke with defined "normal" and "weird" along these "mind your own business" lines. To these Democrats, what is normal is accepting people's differences with an understanding that, underneath it all, most people want the same things. "Weird is really just the opposite of empathy," Josh Hickman of Ohio said, saying it's "not normal" to be so hateful over difference. "We're neighbors, we're friends," he said.

In her convention speech Tuesday night, former First Lady Michelle Obama echoed this sentiment. "Regardless of where you come from, what you look like, who you love, how you worship, or what’s in your bank account, we all deserve the opportunity to build a decent life," she said. "Because no one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one."

Parker Short, the president of Young Democrats of Georgia, had an encounter with MAGA weird at the DNC, which went viral online. He was taped confronting Charlie Kirk, the founder of the Trump-hyping Turning Point USA, over Kirk's false claims that Trump won the 2020 election. Kirk, avoiding the question, instead invoked a transphobic meme — asking liberals "what is a woman?" — in hopes of throwing Short off his game. Short, in response, declared that it's "weird" to ask that, and walked away.

When speaking to Salon the next day, Short was still angry about the encounter. "The weirdest question ever," he declared. "You know what a woman is? Our next president, Kamala Harris is a woman."

The virality of the encounter between Short and Kirk underscores one aspect of "weird" that attendee Keshaun Charles of Illinois highlighted: "It's very youthful. It's very modern," he said, arguing that it's common for young people online to use "weird" to dismiss bigots and reactionaries.

As an example, he flagged Trump's recent appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists, where Trump pretended to be confused over Harris's parentage. "I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" Trump said, refusing to accept that the answer is and has always been "both." (Harris's father is an economist from Jamaica and her mother was a scientist from India.) "That's so weird," Charles said. "Why would you say that? Like, that's so absurd."

After Trump made those ugly statements, there was a robust debate in the punditry about what flavor of racism Trump was invoking. Was this about provoking outrage over interracial marriage? Was some pretzel logic about liberals manipulating identity to score political points? Or does he simply not accept that biracial identities are a thing?

It was probably a little from each category, but all of those distinctions can miss the larger point: It was a weird thing to say. Most Americans in the year 2024 are well aware that biracial people exist and, by and large, they are fine with that. Most don't even think about it very much, because it's such a normal part of life in a multiracial democracy. Trump's tantrum over Harris being both Black and Indian is morally repugnant, but it's also a fixation on race and genealogy that's way out of what most Americans consider normal. It is, to quote Charles, "absurd." Or, in the watchword of the election, it's weird.