Vice President Kamala Harris and her surrogates have leaned heavily into attacking former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, as "weird."
In doing so, they are striking at them in a way that truly hurts strongman figures, wrote authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat for MSNBC.
"It’s the summer of weird Republicans," she wrote. "GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump repeatedly mentions Hannibal Lecter at his rallies, speaking about the fictional cannibal as though he were a real person. 'He’s a lovely man. He’d love to have you for dinner,' must be one of the strangest things a candidate has said while trying to attract votes. Meanwhile, Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has made news with his bizarre opinions, including a 2021 remark that Americans with children should be able to vote more times in an election than their childless compatriots."
Authoritarians have no problem with being called evil, Ben-Ghiat continued. But they despise being called weird — because it means they aren't being taken seriously; it means they're being made fun of, rather than feared. They understand that when they become subjects of satire, people necessarily question everything about them.
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Despots and aspiring despots, she continued, "have their own sadistic sense of humor, which is amply displayed in the awful authoritarian spectacles staged by their governments" ... but "cannot take a joke when they are the targets. That’s why they have to surround themselves with sycophants and lackeys, and their enablers know their prestige must be policed. When a man brought his pet rabbit named Mussolini to a bar in fascist Italy, thinking others would enjoy seeing him order it around, he was quickly arrested and served a year in confinement."
The "weird" line of attack on Trump taps into that same type of weaponized "laughtivism" that has worked to weaken the legitimacy of strongmen around the world, Ben-Ghiat wrote — and the Harris campaign should take advantage of it.
"When we laugh together, fear and distrust lessen, which is the opposite of what authoritarians want," she concluded. "That, too, is why such leaders can’t take a joke."
