The weird card
When it comes to Donald Trump’s flaws we have an embarrassment of riches. Whenever I set out to enumerate them I am in danger of missing something out. Naturally, his most serious transgressions are not of the fashion or social variety, they are deeply criminal. He is a 34-count convicted fraudster. He’s officially adjudicated a rapist. He has 3 more pending criminal trials, one in Georgia for election fraud, one in Florida for top secret documents theft and one in Washington DC for the January 6 insurrection. He is due to be criminally sentenced, possibly to prison, in September. And of course, along with his criminal convictions and pending criminal trials he has civil judgments against him totalling more than half a billion dollars for fraud and defamation.
In view of all this, perhaps in spite of all this, Democrats have in recent days been trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he’s weird. For example, they have highlighted his frequent references to the “Silence of the Lambs” serial killer Hannibal Lecter, noting that not only is it an odd thing to keep bringing up, but it’s unclear whether or not Trump is aware that Lecter is fictional.
Then, of course, there’s the perfectly odd question he posed more than once: which is worse, death by electrocution or death by shark attack? Apparently Trump favours electrocution, which makes me somewhat regret the abolition of the electric chair in Florida. In any case, It reminds me of some of the philosophical bifurcations my friends and I used to come up with when we were between the ages of 8 and 11. You know, things like who is scarier, Frankenstein or the Werewolf?
Will the Weird Card work? Possibly. It seems to be making some inroads among undecided and independent voters. Back in the 20s and 30s comedians similarly made fun of Hitler, mocking his odd physical quirks and humourless fanaticism, and that had its impact among German intellectuals.
Of course, fascism is seldom self-deprecating and, like Trump, the only kind of “humour” Hitler appreciated was the cruel kind, where the joke was emphatically on someone else. Many such German comedians were murdered on direct orders from Der Fuhrer after he came to power, and that finally underscores my point.
So sure, go ahead and mock Trump. It’s a pastime I have engaged in during lighter moments. But never forget the deadly portent behind his agenda, nor the devastating effect a second Trump term would have on climate change, civil rights and the safety of the world. Yes, Trump is weird. He’s also deadly dangerous. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.