New slur just dropped: Perhaps it started with the online meme, which was semi-believable but untrue, that Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) wrote of humping a couch in his coming-of-age memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Or perhaps it started with the most normal, almost boring politician in the world, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has been using this talk track for months but is only just now going viral.
But the Democrats' new strategy is to call their Republican opponents—particularly J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump's vice-presidential pick—"weird." ("Elegant in its simplicity," said one Democratic party strategist of Walz's invention.)
