The Weirdos — My Latest Report in Byline Supplement

Finally, a meme war with legs

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It never gets old. I lie awake with anticipation of making the front page of Byline Supplement — the magazine of Byline Times. For this veteran newsie, making it above the virtual fold in such an important reader-funded ‘broadsheet’ always feels like a jolly holiday.

I am particularly pleased with today’s report — Why ‘Weird Works: The Fight Against Hypernormalization Begins — where I document the origin of the ‘weird’ meme wars and celebrate the fact that the extremists in the GOP are finally are their backfoot.

Why 'Weird' Works: The Fight Against Hypernormalization Begins

Below is an excerpt:

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Why 'Weird' Works: The Fight Against Hypernormalization Begins

Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports on how a single word — 'weird' — is cratering Donald Trump and the GOP. 'Cry Harder, Creeps!'

Billions of words like stars in the sky have been written to prove Donald Trump worked for the Russian Federation in his first term. 

Dozens of best-selling books have documented Trump’s allegiance to foreign despots, and the best investigative reporters globally exposed how the GOP’s Project 2025 is a recipe to create the Fourth Reich in its total annihilation of US democracy.

Despite all this effort to factually prove that the Republican party is “an autocratic force working from within to destroy democracy, in tandem and in sympathy with foreign autocratic states which have that same goal” — as fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat has stated — the true believers of the MAGA Cult have proven deaf to reality.

Until now. 

Until one word — one simple word — unleashed the force of a giant meteor now cratering the GOP.

Weird.

Weirdos.

Creepy weirdos.

For the first time since Trump came down the elevator with his midriff-baring red sparrow, er, third wife, the GOP has been caught on its backfoot in an effective campaign to point out what should be really obvious: Trump is weird, and so are those in his orbit.

He’s always been weird — weird hair, weird skin colour, creepy weird decor at Mar-a-Lago, which attracts a really weird crowd.

But as a superb propagandist, he was able to build a cult of personality that looked past what most saw as pretty obvious — that a game show host was trying to be a dictator.

But thanks to the Power of Weird, he’s now looking pretty shabby. Clearly, his propaganda spell was broken at the National Association of Black Journalists event on Wednesday. He was pulled off stage early by his handlers after he punched himself metaphorically in the face with his own racist comments. And news media is getting the headline right: White Man Tells Black Journalists His Black Opponent Is Not Black.

Trump’s stiff of a VP pick, JD Vance, an empirically proven replicant for his billionaire benefactor, Peter Thiel, has been the subject of a million amorous couch memes, some set to the music of Barry White. 

Weird passages of his weird book, Hillbilly Elegy, have raised the logical question: did anyone in the GOP do opposition research on him or nah?

The origin of the powerfully ‘weird’ grenade is credited to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has been pointing out the obvious on national TV…

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is currently campaigning for the 2024 Presidential election, latched onto the word…

The tsunami effect of the “weird” wars has inspired memes that are now rickrolling around the newsphere of Elon Musk looking creepy in dancing videos where he’s not pretty fly for a white guy…

The Upside Down

Propaganda works on repeat — “lock her up”, “build a wall”, “drain the swamp” — catchphrases laced with misogyny, cruelty, and racism, hypernormalized through repetition and frequency. The cruelty then becomes the point. During the Trump era, it became normal to be racist in public, rather than be shunned.

The modern origins of this can be traced to Vladislov Surkov, Vladimir Putin’s longtime political technologist and the main architect of the Kremlin’s propaganda factory. Surkov merged theatre and politics in what became known as “theatre craft” or dramaturgia as a means to help keep Putin in power. Also known as the “fog of unknowability”, theatre craft turns everything into political spectacle designed to keep people confused and in fear. The “strongman” becomes the savior, his cruelty normal and necessary, while the empathetic and “woke” people are demonized as weak or part of the “out group”.

But in this new meme war of weird vs woke, Data and Disinformation filmmaker Dr. Charles Kriel said the tables are now turning on MAGA.

“MAGA are always insulting the left as though we're unfit to participate in society — we're gay, women, black, liberal, etc. In their universe, that's being 'weird'. Turning that around on them is perfect, because the truth is, the MAGAs who did Jan 6, who open carry at political rallies, who devalue their outsized pickups by plastering them with pictures of a bound and gagged Biden — that's fucking weird.”

Geopolitical analyst Dr. Michael MacKay says pointing out the weirdness of MAGA is a “devastatingly effective tool to use against extremists.”

My podcast partner High Fidelity, who is a practitioner in the art of memetic warfare, told Byline Supplement: “When it comes to memetic warfare — take JD Vance and his alleged love for couches — it doesn’t matter if it’s true, it doesn’t matter if it’s real, it doesn’t even matter if it’s fact. But it does damage just the same and causes a dopamine rush for the ingroup.”

I will admit that the JD Vance couch memes with Barry White crooning are peak internet, but it’s also the relief of how the power of one word can actually usher reality back in, front and center. Finally, it’s the GOP that is engaging in a circular firing squad, as backers inch away from Trump, Project 2025 figureheads are falling on their swords, and the murmuring loudens to replace Vance — who is so unlikeable that he’s being compared to Ron DeSantis…

Kyiv-based investigative reporter Paul Niland told Byline Supplement: “The funniest thing about all of this is that they are scrambling to find some kind of response. For years we have seen Trump use insult after insult for one opponent after another, always some kind of childish slur, and now that they are being called something in response they're whingeing about it…”

Most importantly for US democracy, said High Fidelity, is that “Kamala Harris is now as good for the networks as Trump used to be. She is dominating the airwaves… Kamala’s good vibes stand in stark contrast to the hate, threats, bullying, name calling and general abhorrent behavior of the last eight years by Trump… and the world could really use some good vibes right about now.” 

To read the full report, please take out a subscription to Byline Supplement and help support a small group of global investigative reporters. If you cannot do so at the time, I am authorized by Byline publishers to send a copy of the report upon request at bettedangerous/gmail.

Thank you to everyone who supports independent journalism in this time of grave deception. Collectively, we are making a difference.

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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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Begin each day with a grateful heart.

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