US politics got ‘weird’. But did it really start with ‘Laffin Kamala’?

I think it was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz who first described Donald Trump’s MAGA movement as “weird”.

“Listen to the guy,” Mr Walz told CNN’s Jake Tapper in reference to Mr Trump. “He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, and shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind. And I thought we just give him way too much credit.” He added that calling Mr Trump “weird” helps “ratchet down some of the scariness... If he (Trump) has laughed, it’s at someone, not with someone. That is weird behaviour. And I don’t think you call it anything else. It’s simply what we’re observing.”

Suddenly America 2024 became the “weird” election. That simple five-letter word started to resonate, enough for Kamala Harris’s Democrats to pick it up and run with it.

In just about four days, all the memes, videos — and yes, IRL conversations — started to use the word “weird” to describe Mr Trump’s divisive campaign and agenda. Suddenly, non-Trump America began to mock — mostly nicely, all polite and creative — a darker vision for the country.

Watch this on Fox News for a flavour of the weird political speak of the week since President Joe Biden announced he was standing aside and wouldn’t seek re-election.

What does that one word do? Does it even matter that non-Trump Americans are coalescing around “weird” to categorise the threat they fear to their freedoms?

As I have written before, in the context of autocratic regimes in the Middle East, satire is a powerful tool. It ban­ishes fear by making the high and mighty seem puny and ridicu­lous. When you laugh, you are no longer afraid. Back in 2016, I wrote, “That is the message Egypt’s most famous contem­porary satirist Bassem Youssef recently took to Tunisia.”

I also said: “Authoritarian regimes fear satire — stand-up comedy and car­toons — because, unlike sarcasm, it roots for positive change by exposing follies and weaknesses with humour. Both sarcasm and satire draw attention to weak­nesses — in people, societies, whole pathologies — but sarcasm seeks to belittle and bring down; satire to raise up. This imbues it with a purity that can serve as a psychedelic for the young and idealistic.”

America appears to have rediscovered the powerful possibilities inherent in satire.

But here’s a question that has to be asked. Was it the Minnesota governor who triggered it or Kamala Harris’s inimitable laugh? Mr Walz coined the term but arguably, it is Ms Harris’s propensity to laugh, her capacity for joy, that has uncorked something.

When she laughs, which is often, the unexpected peal startles and causes listeners to smile and wonder.

Mr Trump has been calling Ms Harris “Laffin Kamala”. That may yet prove to be his most perspicacious comment ever.

GOING FURTHER

• This Democratic governor started calling Trump, Vance ‘weird.’ Hear why | CNN

• There is not enough satire in the Arab world | The Arab Weekly

• Trump and His Allies Adapt to a New Role: Fighting for Attention | New York Times

• As racist and sexist attacks fly, Republicans grapple with how to take on Harris | Reuters

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in Medium and re-published in PUBLIC SQUARE UK on 31 July 2024 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)