Gianni Rodari (1920-1980), Italian writer, educator and journalist, said that words are powerful elements that cause chain reactions. Because everything starts with words. With them we give meaning, context, intention and generate feelings. Words have the power to evoke the conscious and unconscious plane, to associate with images, memories and experiences. With the languagewe build our way of understanding the world. Last week, Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota and Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate, said that both Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, are “just weird” (“These guys are just weird”). Strange, eccentric, a rarity —in its translation into English— somewhat sinister and pejorative. And with “weird” a chain reaction started.
Because what Walz did (and was immediately echoed by senior Democratic officials and Kamala Harris herself) was to give a name to a concept that did not exist: how Trump and his MAGA army act. The adjective “weird” encapsulates a series of behaviors and speeches that many consider out of the ordinary or disconcerting. But that, in the midst of enormous polarization, were seen as political or ideological discussions. For Walz, for Democratic voters and for many American citizens, they are not, but rather strange and meaningless occurrences. But someone had to say it and start the reaction.
In fact, the implicit message in many MAGA messages is that what they were saying was shared by ordinary people in the United States, a silent majority. Calling them weird implies that they are not like the majority of the population, that they are not a silent majority, but just a loud, strange, irrational minority.
Walz’s words also served as a catalyst for public opinion to understand, in a simple way, that Trump is not a normal, run-of-the-mill candidate, but rather a strange, controversial, dangerous one. The label “strange” provides voters with a simple and clear framework for interpreting the actions and statements of Trump and his team: they are not normal, they are not like everyone else, they are not logical, what they say does not make sense. And it is much harder to vote for or support something that makes no sense than something normal. That is the importance of the word, because it makes concrete something that was abstract.
Language plays a crucial role in political communication. Words not only convey information, but they also construct narratives and shape opinions. Today, “weird” is becoming much more than just a word. It is a symbol of everything that many find problematic in the Trump era and captures the essence of a way of understanding politics marked by constant controversy, lies and unpredictability. It is a single word, but it can change it all.
James Baldwin, American poet and civil rights activist and icon of the progressive struggle in the world, wrote: «We write to change the world. […] The world changes based on how people see it and if we can alter, even by just a millimetre, the way they look at reality, then we can change it. Words can change the world. They have always done so throughout history. We don’t know if “weird” can do it. It would be a rarity if he did. But, for now, he has managed to alter Trump’s imperial script. Even if it is just by a millimetre. If there are words, there is hope. Again, and more than ever, “Hope.”
Antoni Gutierrez-Rubycommunication advisor
@antonigr
#word #defeat #Donald #Trump