Even Republican senators cheered Mitch McConnell despairing over the growing strangeness of his party.
In 2022, when explaining the GOP’s midterm performance (which was not good!), he essentially said, gosh, what can you do? “My view is do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt,” he said of his fellow Republicans. “Now, hopefully next cycle, we’ll have quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome.”
McConnell was the guy at the party who told everyone he was “with those guys, but he wasn’t,” with those guys” and hissed through gritted teeth at his colleagues to “try to act normal.”
No one is immune, regardless of their political party. Former President George W. Bush has gone one step further in calling Trump and his team crackpots, a chilling sentiment that transcends any party loyalties he may have had. Officially, he attended Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 to witness the peaceful transfer of power. Unofficially, he is said to have turned to his fellow travelers as they left the podium and said, “That was a weird thing.”
TikTok and internet culture aren’t the only areas Harris’ campaign is tapping into. Modern dating parlance gives us the idea of ”the ick,” a term so relatable it was recently added to the Cambridge Dictionary.
It is defined as “the sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do.”
Once you have ick, you can’t get rid of it. Ever. In dating, it might mean losing someone’s phone number. In politics, Democrats hope that voters’ ick will translate into votes. Imagine high-ranking Democrats pulling voters aside like they’re their best friend and muttering, “Really? He? But he is so… strange.” Politicians cannot go all out, Walter Masterson style, but they can get away with a cleverly used gentle troll.
Of course, the Unified Theory of Disgust (Political Edition) is a nonpartisan doctrine, as evidenced by the fact that a severe case of disgust was the last straw that toppled Biden’s re-election campaign just days ago.
As Lawrence points out, “If you’re making an attack, and then something happens that reinforces it, it’s really hard to get away from it. Biden’s debate, when it started, [Republicans said]’He’s old, he’s old, he’s old,’ and then he looks old. There’s no turning back from that. You can’t get that out of people’s heads.”
Again, it goes both ways: “And so you have Democrats saying, ‘They’re weirdos, they’re weirdos, they’re weirdos,’ and then old clips of JD Vance come up talking about women with cats and talking about how people without children shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Donald Trump talks about Hannibal Lecter like he’s a real person. All of that stuff just builds on itself until it becomes part of the zeitgeist.”
Progressive voters are seeing this change in language and they support it.
One person on X wondered why “anyone” would vote for a Republican. “Hateful, cruel, misogynistic, and just, like, vibing in a weird, uncomfortable way,” they wrote.
