Say it loud: I’m weird and I’m proud!

If you’ve been following American politics lately… well, first, my apologies, because American politics have descended to depths even Mark Twain couldn’t have imagined. Bearing in mind that Twain once wrote “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress,” to suggest even he couldn’t have imagined our politics becoming this dire, dismal and dumb is really saying something.

In recent weeks, Democrats have begun to label as “weird” certain Republicans, including former reality TV show host Donald Trump’s running mate, JD “Cat Ladies Are Sinister” Vance. And if their reactions are any indication, Republicans are not real fond of being called weird.

Look, I get that this is politics and that any attack which appears to be working probably seems like an attack worth continuing, at least in the minds of little, miserable creatures like political campaign strategists and communications consultants. But as an out and proud weirdo, I’m just not happy about this.

As a confessed, committed, lifelong weirdo, I’m not happy about having JD Vance counted among my peers, even if he and I do share a certain affection for The Lord of the Rings. If Vance were truly weird, his beard would look like Gandalf’s and he wouldn’t be a Senator from fucking Ohio.

Granted, if JD Vance truly had fucked a couch once upon a time, that certainly could have counted as a weird thing to do. Sadly though, the couch thing appears to be a false claim – which I suppose is good news for the couch, at least.

When I was a young student, from elementary school through high school, I was part of a group that was ostracized for being weird. We were mocked, harassed, bullied and occasionally beaten for being weird. What was it that made us seem so weird to the other kids? We were part of something called the “gifted program,” which was allegedly created to serve kids who were moving along faster, academically speaking, than their peers, but which really seemed to serve primarily as a means of identifying and segregating weirdos and nerds from the “normal” kids.

One day, while on my way to attend a function coordinated by the gifted program, I was surrounded by a group of boys who took issue with the way I dressed, the way my hair was styled and just about everything else about me that was visually observable. They didn’t beat me, luckily, but they did shove me to the ground repeatedly, call me a “faggot” countless times and throw my lunch bag in the trash – but only after stealing my Doritos, naturally.

By the time I got to the assembly, I was furious, frustrated and flummoxed. Fighting back tears, I told a kid named Steve, one of the older boys in the gifted program, what had happened. In finishing my story, I said something like “Sometimes I really wish I could just be normal.”

Steve wasn’t having it.

“Fuck that,” Steve said. “Being normal sucks. The kids who just fucked with you are normal. Normal is just another word for mediocre, ignorant, dull and unimaginative. Weird people are creative, weird people are interesting. Weird people do things other people remember and talk about for years. Weird people make art and music and invent useful things. Normal people work in offices and take phone calls and go to meetings. Fuck being normal.”

Beyond cheering me up for the rest of the day, Steve’s observations became the safe room within my awkward teenage mind-home. When other kids fucked with me because of the way I looked, the way I talked, or any of the countless other things about me they harped on, instead of responding with anger or shame or frustration, I’d just shine them, not even acknowledging their bullshit anymore, let alone reacting to it.

“Damn right I’m weird,” was my new attitude. “Try not to get too jealous over it.”

A little over eight years ago, JD Vance famously wrote of his now-running mate that “Trump is cultural heroin.”

“He makes some feel better for a bit,” Vance continued. “But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it… What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein.”

The fact that Vance has changed his tune so completely and turned from harsh Trump critic to fawning Vice Presidential Trump lackey isn’t weird, it’s merely hypocritical – and here in America, hypocrisy is as normal as it comes.

The adult industry has lots of weird people in it, thankfully. Without them, we’d probably have nothing but the most tired, cliché porn being made, all around the planet. The female performers would all look like early 90s Pamela Anderson clones and nobody would fuck anybody unless there was pizza, pool cleaning or broken plumbing involved.

The people the GOP has chosen to lead their party aren’t weird; they’re just a bunch of cynical, dishonest pricks. The global society of weirdos hereby categorically rejects their application for membership.

Photo by Marcelo Gonzalez from Pexels