Why has "weird" had such an incredible punch to it, but "Deplorables" flopped hard and made things worse? There are several theories, probably all contributing lol, but I just think its interesting.

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"deplorable" is a norman word, "weird" is an anglo-saxon word

germanic root words hit the anglosphere brainstem

simple as

She called "half" of his supporters a "basket of deplorables" which is a lot less targeted than calling the candidates themselves weird.

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Chuds revel in being evil. Calling them villains or bad guys or saying they're a disgrace will have no effect. "Clever" whedonesque comebacks never work because they're dork shit. You just sound like an elementary school nerd in a crappy TV show trying to outsmart a bully. It never works, even in media.

Calling them creepy freaks works for the same reason it worked in elementary school. It others them and identifies their views as abnormal and fringe. A huge aspect of their ideology is the false belief that they and their beliefs are normal, that they are the bulwark of normalcy fighting against people who want to do strange and unnatural things. Slapping them with a straight-up dismissal of them and their views with a refusal to engage shuts them down entirely.

I think that is over thinking it. Republicans don't mind being deplorable. There is a kind of virtue there. Being hated is a kind of respect.

Republicans are conservative, so they are specifically against being weird. to call them weird is to use a weapon they are weak to. It is just resonant emotionally

I figure whats gonna happen is Dems'll never get what made "weird" work. It's not the word itself it's the dismissal without disdain. "Weird" is different than normal. "Normal" is what fascists claim to be. Is you call them weirdos it ruins their argument, since part of the whole populism thing means they have be seen as normal before they can denounce "the other"

"Deplorable" is as OP says, elitist. Anyone with chops can discount "deplorable" by singin' "friends in low places" and get right back to vilifying "the other".

But i don't think they'll ever get that. I think they'll lean on "weird" until it's lost it's meaning. My personal guess as to why? They actually are elitist so they don't get the difference.

Clinton was speaking about the supporters and not the leaders. So I’d agree with you that she came off as a snobby out of touch elite who didn’t like the unwashed masses.

There’s also the thing about the conservatives trying to wear the mantle of “silent majority” that calling conservative leadership and talking heads weird seems to be sticking.

It might also be a good way to sidestep getting sucked into a debate bro situation. It’s up to the other person to not be weird, you don’t have to supply a logical argument why somebody else is weird.

Deplorable is a weird word and not just because it's a big word

How many of you honestly think to yourselves "that's deplorable" when you hear about something terrible? I don't know about the rest of you but when I find out a cop murdered another person or about some nazi shit or about some nonce shit or something like that, my first thoughts are "that's disgusting" not "that's deplorable"

Deplorable is an attack yes but it's a weak attack, it's an old timey word that has been relegated to academia and devoid of any emotion behind it

Someone calling something or someone deplorable just has no bite to it because you can tell that the person using the word doesn't actually care about the thing they're talking about

If Hillary actually hated Trump supporters even half as much as I do she'd have called them disgusting hogs because that's what they are

"Deplorable" is the kind of word you use to describe out-there behavior that clearly crosses some sort of line. Some guy in the checkout line talking too loud about Trump isn't deplorable, but he is weird. Deplorable would be chanting "Jews will not replace us".

If you ignore belief, ignore what people say and only look at what they do; then most people who vote republican live functionally identical lives to people who vote democrat. Most of them won't go to a rally in Charlottesville or the capital (that's your outliers, people really plugged-in and feeling strongly about spectacle-politics), but they will have slightly weird answer if you asked them about it. "Weird" describes more of them than "deplorable" ever could.

Instead of "this is a sign of the rising tide of fascism" or "a threat to our democracy" or whatever, "weird" is a more general thing that speaks to whatever the listener is attuned to but generally understands as the off-putting wrongness of these Republican ghouls. It helps that Democrats have finally (by virtue of sidestepping any sort of primary election for their candidate) put Blank Slate Generic Candidate at the top of their Presidential ticket.

Also nobody was interested in hearing Hillary Dang Clinton talking down about any part of the electorate. It reinforced her elitist image in a way that all the attack ads in the world could only wish to do

deplorables has too many syllables

Let's put it this way: I'm a very smart person, and I can't give a specific definition for Deplorable. I can't even think of easy examples. The first thing that comes to mind is Jews in the Holocaust. It's so complex that to most people it really just means bad. It failed because nobody fucking knows what it means.

Deplorables would have worked fine with the young people who can vote now but couldnt in 2008.

I don't think Deplorables even works now. It's unclear what it refers to.

With weird, anyone can instantly think of a million weird things the republicans are doing at any moment.

For me I think it's because weird is far more harmful as it outgroups conservatives as not being part of the accepted majority thought and so are instead being "weird" or "cringe" by talking about stupid shit. Also ngl looking at someone and simply saying "my God you are weird and fucking stupid" is a shutdown that conservatives understand as they use it on others.

tldr: fash don't like being attacked with the stuff they use to attack marginalized peeps

"weird" has a connotation of impotence/weakness that deplorable, far-right, fascist, etc. don't

if you were asked to think of "weird" people you knew in high school, you don't think of the jocks, or bullies, or even the class clowns, you think of the people who were obsessed with anime and didn't shower enough

The big thing for me is that weird is a morally neutral word, but it can be used in this context to create a moral judgement. Basically, you can claim something is factually weird, but then the audience gets to interpolate the moral value out of it. Requiring audience participation in the moral judgement allows people to feel included in making that moral judgement, and on the other side, you then have to try to either contest if what you are doing is 'wierd' or if 'weird' is not a morally bad thing, something that Republicans can't do because they consider themselves 'normal', even though they are objectively weird people (as most politicians are).

It's a good rhetorical play, but it is becoming cringe imo.

Any insult that the average electorate has to Google the definition of, isn't gonna stick.

My theory is that deplorables is based on outrage, and was part of the 2016 strategy of the dems making a show of how shocked they were at all the norms trump was breaking, which was completely ineffective. Weird has an air of just pointing out the obvious, and can be done in a detached way when appropriate, and that's spreading much better.

And I think 3 is a big part of it. Not that the chuds weren't unhinged in 2016, but at the time the moment they were having was getting to say the extreme parts of standard conservatism out loud. What was a fringe position then still generally had a short pathway back to well worn conservative talking points if it got too much attention. But they've been chasing the feeling of taking the presidency for eight years, and they've spun themselves out into positions that they really can't explain to anyone who didn't go on that journey with them, so weird works now in a way it wouldn't have then.

I think perhaps grifters just gave it more 'power'; kind of like boomer. A whole bunch of people who make their money complaining about everything under the sun decided to hyperfocus on this and cry about it and gave it a more potent effect.

Also the term deplorable is akin to calling different minority groups criminals; it ascribes crimes to a wide swathe of people and creates a sense of victimization; it's sort of like how today if you criticize Nazis, Republicans will immediately perk up and say 'we're not Nazis!' (an interesting point Vaush once made was that in the past, if you said you hated Nazis, conservatives would've said 'yeah, we hate them too'; but today associate the term Nazis with themselves). Weird on the other hand is to say that they're acting out of the norm, and no one wants to be different; Also incels and many other weird right wing groups aren't completely accepted within conservative circles and no one wants to be associated with them.

There's a thread in the 1992 film 'The Babe' about Babe Ruth around the word "incorrigible". As a young boy, he is labelled with this term ending him up in the 'special class' for bad kids, etc. It comes back around when he assaults other characters in his adult life after that word is used against him. I think this is probably a bit of the boomer brain recognition of 'deplorables' in related to this language.

The words sound similarly judgemental, while weird is taken as a more 'in the moment' behavioral meaning. "Incorrigible" and "deplorables" are similarly permanent seeming, like an attack on someones core being, not just related to current behaviors. There's also the vibe of 'reclaiming' deplorables. "The Expendables" was released in 2010, so maybe that's a bit of a response in some ways.

Weird is just not as broadly judgemental. Many things can be weird and also be cool or good. Weird things can become familiar and less weird over time, etc.

“Basket of Deplorables” came out of Hillary’s mouth. Hillary’s, eh, Hillary. If you don’t like her for the destabilization of Libya, you probably don’t like her for just being kind of uptight and ostentatious in general.

I also think the situation with the right has degraded considerably since then, too.

Deplorable is a moral condemnation.

Weird is like, calling them deficient. It's calling them lesser.

Like you know the whole "to be attacked by the enemy is a good thing" sentiment? They have that too. If you think someone else is morally bankrupt, them calling you a bad person is confirmation that your moral stance is different from theirs and could even be something you want.

If you think someone is less than you and they say that actually, you're the inferior one, it stings.

Deplorable is too mamy syllable for american to say. Also hillary clinton lol

All good, but 2, 7, 9, and 10 ring really true. (Long ass effort post reply)

Someone made an effort post about this topic pretty recently, but I can't for the life of me find it.

“De-plor-a… THAT WORD HAS TOO MANY SYLLABLES. APOLOGIZE!”

Mr. Torgue

2, 4, 9

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