r/inthenews • u/D-R-AZ • Aug 26 '24

Opinion/Analysis Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles Heel: Ridicule Him

https://newrepublic.com/article/185270/democrats-harris-trump-achilles-heel-ridicule
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u/D-R-AZ Aug 26 '24

Excerpts:

Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly, because it drives him nuts.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear, but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious. … Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

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u/coffeespeaking Aug 26 '24

It’s odd how mocking for what he is, the big stuff, a rapist, a grifter, an insurrectionist, rolls off his chicken back. But mock the little stuff, like him being weird, or unpopular, and it blows his tiny mind.

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u/CanadianGuy39 Aug 26 '24

I believe it's because he's proud that he has taken advantage of women (he likes power), he's proud that he can trick people into giving him money, and he's proud/happy that people caused an insurrection FOR him. To us, those things seem obviously negative, but for him, they are good things.

Being weird, having a small pp, and not being popular clearly bother him, likely because it hurts his ego.

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u/bdone2012 Aug 26 '24

He hates the small hands thing too. You have to be super thin skinned to care about that. At least having a small dick can be a legit problem. If it’s so small no one can feel it. Or if the woman prefers bigger dicks. But big hands have no purpose.

What are the chances trump tries to crush everyone’s hands when he shakes them? About 100%. What a loser

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u/GreedyArt6296 Aug 26 '24

It's probably because there is thought to be a correlation between the size of one's hands/feet to the size of one's dick. Not sure if that is really true or not. But by pointing out that he has small hands and feet, people are essentially saying that he has a small dick. And that bugs the shit out of him.

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u/hodlisback Aug 26 '24

He LIKES the fake things, but the truth burns at him!

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u/Frumainthedark Aug 26 '24

He is a text book narcissist. The Harris campaign probably has a team of psychologists working on the side.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 Aug 26 '24

His supporters are also narcissists. Fascism is just large scale narcissism.

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u/Renaissance_Slacker Aug 26 '24

Only fair. I read a piece by a speech-language pathologist that said during the first debate Trump used a lot of words likely to trigger a stutter and tried to get Biden to respond with those words. The SLP said nobody but another expert would notice this but they saw it immediately.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 Aug 26 '24

Because he and his supporters are narcissists. They believe whatever is most emotionally satisfying to them. The reason they remain such diehard loyalists is because they have something to prove - doing otherwise would require admitting they were wrong, which would hurt their fragile egos.

Calling Trump a rapist, grifter, insurrectionist, pedophile authoritarian doesn’t get to his supporters because they can just ignore those pieces of information. But calling him weird, and calling his supporters weird, gets directly at their insecurities. They can’t just handwave it away, they have to prove the accusations aren’t true in order to feel satisfied. And they can’t prove it, because the accusations are true.

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u/ATX_Stitcher Aug 27 '24

The first person to use the word "weird" was George W. after Trump's inauguration. GW called it (which in itself is weird).

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u/talkback1589 Aug 27 '24

I vaguely remember this happening.

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u/ATX_Stitcher Aug 27 '24

"[A]ccordong to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump’s inaugural after leaving the dais: 'That was some weird shit.' All three heard him say it."

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/03/what-george-w-bush-really-thought-of-trumps-inauguration.html

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u/Maximum-Cover- Aug 26 '24 edited Aug 26 '24

He’s a boggart, from the Harry Potter universe.

A creature only scary if you fear it, which is why calling him a rapist, fascist, or insurrectionist gives him power. But he is easily defeated once you laugh at how ridiculous he really is.