Republicans made deliberate weirdness their defining political aesthetic in 2024

Evidence

The 2024 Republican National Convention, held just days after an assassination attempt on Trump, was a counter-counterculture variety show. One guest speaker was Amber Rose—Ye’s ex, known for her shaved head and forehead tattoo of her sons’ names. Russell Brand was there to support the cause. Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ran on the premise that Republicans had become extremely “weird,” which convinced the GOP to lean in and make weird its defining aesthetic. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 830

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence for the reader’s counter-case that today’s era does have a signature (weirdness as political style), one Marx may be mislabeling. — connects to: Humor can bridge machine Democrats and patrician Republican legislators — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 529