Weird: A Sympathetic Reappraisal

These people are weird because they think they're normal and that everyone should be like them, despite being totally weird. *That* is weird.

The political word of the month, as I think everyone knows, is “weird.”

Finally, after eight years of failing to convince middle America that Donald Trump is a malevolent, lying autocrat, someone (in particular, Governor Tim Walz) has found an effective way to deflate him.  Call him a weirdo.

Understandably, there’s been a bit of a backlash against this tactic in the weirdo community.  We like being weird, we don’t like being stigmatized, and we definitely don’t like being associated with Donald Trump and JD Vance. 

So, as a charter member of said community, I propose a critical, but ultimately sympathetic, reappraisal of the term. Because it fits, it works, and it says something useful about big, important things.

1.

After years of resisting it, I embraced my inner weirdness many years ago.  To me, “weird” is a compliment.  It connotes quirkiness and difference; it is the opposite of being basic, bland, conformist, and boring.  Most of my friends, really almost all of them, are weird in some way. 

Even this newsletter, insofar as it includes both guided meditations and political analyses, is a little weird.  So is my whole career, blending journalism, spirituality, academics, psychedelics, meditation, poetry, and whatever else I’m forgetting right now.  I am serious about three religio-spiritual identities, I have unusual musical tastes that trend toward the marginal, I have lived a rich and full queer life (but am now a parent), I’ve gone on months-long silent meditation retreats, I’ve danced around the maypole many times, and I’m a little weird personally, as an intelligent introvert with mild social anxiety.

I’m into all this; it’s me, it’s always been me (even as a young child), and I’m fine with it.  More than fine with it, actually – I kind of love it, and love meeting other weirdos, even (especially?) when their quirks don’t quite line up with my own.  We are the creatives, the innovators.  We travel with “multiple passports,” in the words of queer theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid.  It’s not all wine and roses; social interactions can be challenging, as can holding certain kinds of jobs.  But I’ve found my lane(s) and I embrace weirdness fully.

I also love the origin of the word, which dates back to the Germanic/Old English word wyrd, referring the magical, perhaps divine, power to alter one’s destiny. It referred to the Fates, like the “Weird Sisters” in Macbeth, and from there to witches, the ‘otherworldly,’ and David Bowie. The original meaning still resonates today: societal expectations can put us into specific tracks, but the weird diverge, and carve out their own destinies. As the Urban Dictionary puts it, a weird person “someone who is too real for reality and doesn't give a crap about what other people think.”  Yes, please.

AI prompt: “Insert Donald Trump into David Bowie’s video for Life on Mars.” I really apologize for creating this.

Now, just because I like the word “weird” doesn’t mean it’s not problematic.  Obviously, “weird” is often used as a slur, and often against neurodiverse people.  When I look back on my childhood, it seems likely that a lot of kids we called weirdos were on the spectrum in ways that weren’t diagnosed yet, or were just different mentally or physically in ways that, in the bad old days, we made fun of.  That sucks, I was guilty of it, and it’s not okay in any way.  I don’t want to minimize the way the term ‘weird’ can be stigmatizing or ableist, and, in playfully exploring how it’s being used against Trump, Vance, et al, I’m aware that this use can perpetuate that stigma. 

Which is part of how I intend to rescue it.

2.

There is a crucial distinction between the Right’s weirdness and mine: they don’t admit it.  On the contrary, they insist that they are normal, and represent everything good, wholesome, and American.  They hate weirdness, completely oblivious to how weird they actually are.  There is only one good way to have a family.  There is only one kind of American – or, as Vance put it in his RNC speech, there’s only one primary kind of American, with everyone else here (including his wife) being a kind of newcomer.  And it’s perfectly fine, in this view, to use the power of the state to enforce the way things ought to be.