‘Weird’ And The Breaking of The Fascist Fever

There’s a long and storied and important history of laughing at fascists. 

Not every book documenting the fascist scourge of the 20th century will mention the power of mockery and laughter in the face of authoritarians, but many have, and the use of such activism – sometimes called laughtivism – has since been documented by scholars and pro-democracy activists. Laughing at the Bad Man, it turns out, puts him in a bind and avoids what he really wants: Conflict and chaos. 

The power of laughtivism against fascist movements has been top of mind for me over the past ten days because, as you may have noticed, Democrats and the left have unleashed the strategy against Donald Trump and his outright fascist campaign. Folks opposed to Trump – from mainline Democratic lawmakers to left-wing activists – have taken to calling Trumpists “weird.” This one-word attack, this point-and-laugh strategy, is quickly driving the right wing insane. In twenty-plus years of my political life, I have never seen Republicans on their back foot like they are today. They have no response to the “weird” allegations, which they cannot and will not beat. 

One word to break the fascist fever. One word to deflate the power Trump and his cronies think they have. One word to expose them for what they are: Schoolyard bullies with a laughably inflated sense of historical consequence. They are nothing but weird. 

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Trump as recently as July 21 laid out the blueprint for how to take the wind out of his fascist sails. “I hate when people laugh at me,” he said somberly at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I hate it. Hate it. It’s so disrespectful.” This wasn’t a bit, or some practiced schtick he does for his adoring crowds. The Big Boy meant what he said: Don’t laugh at me. I don’t like it.

The left has spent the past week and a half doing nothing but laughing at Trump and his catastrophic pick for vice president, JD Vance, who reportedly knows couches in a biblical sense. Watching Republicans and far-right commentators flail in the face of being called weird has been among the most satisfying political moments of my lifetime, up there with Republicans’ apocalyptic fervor after the 2008 election of centrist Democrat Barack Obama. They have no comeback, no way of defending themselves against accusations of being weird because, you see, they are weird in all the worst ways (more on that later). 

The coordinated “weird” attack on Trump and his people, like many forms of mockery against fascists in the past, has melted their carefully-constructed facade – the Strong Man convincing you he is the Strong Man. The authoritarian right, promising to undo the most basic rights in ending democratic governance and the American experiment, has gone from terrifying and powerful to weak and laughable. All with the power of one word: Weird. 

Dilemma Actions, AKA The Right’s Lose-Lose Situation

Pro-democracy activists who have helped beat back fascist regimes have promoted what they call “dilemma actions” for at least the past quarter century, though the practice of making fun of fascist politicians and their henchmen goes back generations. A dilemma action is one in which authoritarians are put in the toughest of spots: Lose-lose situations in which they can’t use violent tactics (their only move) against the opposition for fear of the public siding with said opponents. 

This has taken on various forms in various countries and cultures over the years. One good example is from Turkey, where the country’s far-right authoritarian regime has instructed police officers to patrol public displays of affection and suggestive women’s clothing in public spaces. A Turkish cop in May 2013 was recorded by bystanders breaking up a couple making out as they waited for a bus. Videos of the incident went viral and caused an uproar among the Turkish public. They did not stage a standard protest, however. Not even close. There was no chanting or inflammatory signs held above heads and taunting of police officers in riot gear wanting nothing more than a reason to let their batons to the talking. There was no clashing with the armored cops at all. 

Instead, hundreds of couples gathered in a public space and sucked face. The women wore what we might call immodest clothing and the couples groped each other and kissed and kissed and kissed some more. For the police and the Turkish regime, this was an “irresolvable dilemma.” The police could not possibly turn violent against these smooching protesters. They would look brutal and, in some ways, silly. The public would surely sympathize with the kissing anti-authoritarians if force were deployed. Police are trained to respond to force, not non-violence. In this case, they slinked away and the protesters cheered and, in some cases, made out a little more. 

Pro-democracy demonstrators in Germany have long used laughtivism against neo-nazis who parade around small German towns calling for the return of fascism. In a small town near the Czech border, neo-nazis for years made a pilgrimage to the grave of Hitler confidant Rudolph Hess. They wouldn't stop even when town officials exhumed Hess’ body and moved it to an undisclosed location. 

The townspeople didn’t engage the neo-nazi marchers with threats and force. Residents and local businesses instead pledged money for every mile the fascists walked in their journey to Hess’ burial site. They raised about $12,000 and gave the money to an organization dedicated to de-radicalizing young people trying to exit extremist groups. Protestors threw rainbow confetti on the neo-nazis as they passed the finish line of the marathon route the pro-democracy group had created as a way of mocking the little fascist walk. These adherents to a hideous political ideology were made into subjects of ridicule. They were made to be fools by folks who smartly refused to engage them the way they wanted to be engaged: With violence. 

This was the strategic error of the Charlottesville counter protestors in August 2017, when anti-fascists descended upon the quiet Virginia town to push back against a white supremacist rally teeming with fascists emboldened by the election of Trump eight months earlier. 

Anti-fascists in Charlottesville clashed with a range of far-right groups that had wanted nothing more than to hit back against opponents ready to rumble. The strategic mistake lies in believing the left can out-violence the right. It cannot. Noam Chomsky and other leftist thinkers have begged and pleaded with left-wing movements to avoid combat with far-right forces that feed on violence and thrive politically in the ensuing chaos. In Charlottesville, henchmen from white supremacist groups reveled in the violence, the police stood by and watched, and an anti-fascist protester, Heather Hyer, was murdered when one of the fascists drove his car into a crowd of counter protesters. It was, in short, an unmitigated disaster that was largely reported as a both-sides issue in mainstream media outlets because violence was met with violence. 

Pro-democracy activists have shown that far-right demonstrations of power have six core goals: To legitimize their views, strengthen their self-image as part of the downtrodden, unite their squabbling factions, attract new people to the movement, control media coverage, and feel powerful and heroic. All of these goals were met with the violent counter demonstrations in Charlottesville. It could not have turned out better for the fascists. 

Shortly before the tragedy of Charlottesville, anti-fascists in a small Montana town responded to a neo-nazi rally there by dressing in clown costumes and dancing around the glum fashy bros who, again, had been emboldened by the election of a white supremacist to the White House. The rally fizzled quickly and the anti-fascist clowns celebrated as the marchers dispersed. Any seriousness with which the fascists had imbued in themselves and their horrific cause was drained by the mockery of clowns in blue wigs. The question became: Who is the clown here? 

Dilemma actions and laughtivism go back a long way. Polish citizens used it to protest the nation’s authoritarian regime in the 1980s, as did activists in post-Soviet states dominated by strongmen. Gandhi's legendary salt march qualifies as a dilemma action. People in 1940s Vichy France poked fun at their occupiers in ways that put the repressive authorities in awkward dilemmas. They understood that their opponents’ capacity for violence was far beyond their own. Their opponents could not stand, however, being laughed at. 

As much anger and vitriol as the far right inspires in decent, freedom-loving people, engaging them on their terms is a surefire way to fail in stemming the fascist tide. Drain the bubbling cauldron of emotion out of the equation – this is not easy for me – and you’ll see the nonviolent approach has a far higher success rate. Think of it as protesting analytics, and the analytics say that nonviolent forms of protest are twice as likely to succeed compared to violent forms. In fact, movements with a mere 3.55 percent of the population actively supporting them have never failed, according to Pranksters vs. Autocrats, a comprehensive review of nonviolence and dilemma actions. 

The spreadsheet is begging you to make a laughing stock of the far right, not face them in the field of battle. To deploy laughter against a movement with such dangerous ideas and anti-human policy goals is certainly counterintuitive. It goes against the long-held idea that a bully only responds to force. But to break the fascist fever and reveal them for the pathetic people they are, laughtivism is the way. Whether Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has studied the dilemma action/laughtivism literature, I don’t know. They’re using it though. And it’s working beautifully. 

Good Weird And Bad Weird

The Harris campaign is by far and away the most online presidential campaign in American history. It’s reminiscent of John Fetterman’s awe-inspiring 2022 Senate campaign in which Fetterman and his staffers ruthlessly poked fun at the fake TV doctor/grifter known as Oz. The 2022 Fetterman campaign was a case study in countering the right wing’s bad faith with no faith at all – just pointing and laughing and asking the opponent why they’re so fucking weird. This was all before Fetterman's Republican transformation.

Harris’ campaign has launched a coordinated attack on Trump and Vance and all their sycophants with a simple and effective message: These guys are weird. We’ve spent nearly a decade calling the American fascist movement dangerous (it is) and anti-democratic (it is) and an existential threat to our constitutional republic (it is). These attacks have been stern and serious and delivered with a set jaw and a straight face. While the Trumpists have paraded around the country happily spewing sexist and racist and homophobic invective and asking the libs if they’re triggered, if they’re going to cry to mommy, the left has shaken its head in the most somber way possible and in many cases answered with yes, we are triggered, this is very much upsetting. 

This approach has fed into what the fascists want: To be taken seriously, to be seen as dangerous edgelords ready and willing to buck the status quo, to be regarded by enemies and supporters alike as revolutionaries on the cusp of victory. We have given them exactly what they want. 

But in the wake of Joe Biden bowing out of his re-election bid – positioning himself as an historical figure with connections to both the first black and first woman president – the left has taken the Harris campaign’s cues and stopped being so fucking grim about everything. Everyone from Harris to her potential vice presidential picks to campaign surrogates on cable news have taken the “weird” attack and run with it. They have shown, with a single word, how tragically out of step the fascist movement is with the American public. Years and years of stewing in far-right online echo chambers have fooled fascists into believing the normie voter is as deranged and off putting as the average member of the fascist echo chamber. They have learned the hard way that normies are utterly horrified by the language and policy goals and worldview of those who have slithered out of the echo chamber, including and especially JD Vance. 

Vance has weirded out the American public since Elon Musk and other fascist tech bros convinced Trump to put him on the presidential ticket. Vance, a fake hillbilly who once called Trump the American version of Hitler before succumbing to the right-wing grift pipeline, has used his time in media appearances to belittle Americans who don’t have children, calling their lives meaningless and saying the federal government should tax childless adults more heavily than folks with kids and maybe strip childless people of their voting rights as guaranteed by the constitution, a document fascists hate. I’m sure this punish-the-childless bit killed in far right discords and social media circles, but in the real world, exposed to the light of normal American culture, nothing is more odious or insulting. Not only has Vance the weirdo attacked American voters who don’t have children, but he’s turned off anyone who has a childless friend or family member who they love dearly. 

Going after Americans who don’t have kids might be the single biggest unforced error in modern political history. It instantly confirmed Vance as a freak, a weirdo. And the label was stuck. It might be enough for Trump to boot Vance from the ticket.

Democrats now have a youthful candidate who smiles and laughs and appears to be as joyful as any candidate in my lifetime, calling her opponents weird and urging her supporters to point and laugh at the pathetic people who have cosplayed as the boogeyman for ten years. The far right has made Harris’ laugh a talking point because they hate joy and they cannot laugh unless it is at someone’s expense. It’s why there are no funny conservatives; it is impossible for them to grasp comedy. The world is a terrifying place for the modern conservative. There is nothing to smile about. 

Some on the left have dismissed the coordinated “weird” campaign as juvenile and self defeating. These folks have no understanding of the current political and cultural landscape and should not be taken seriously. Perhaps they come from the old school, where we pretended politics was a battle of ideas when really, all along, it was a battle of personalities. No one cares about policy. They simply want to like the person occupying the White House. Smearing your opponent as weird and out of step with the American voter is as good a strategy as we’ve seen in the 21st century. Is it high minded and philosophical? No, it’s not. Are normies high minded and philosophical? No, they’re not. This is why Marxists have largely failed to gain power. They think too much. 

There are, of course, different kinds of weird. There’s good weird and bad weird, or creepy-weird and interesting-weird. Plenty of regular folks and artists are a very good kind of weird. They reject conformity in ways that make us question cultural norms and force us to face the inherent randomness of existence. Weirdness is vitally important in this way. 

Vance and Trump and their foot soldiers are most definitely creepy-weird. Here are weird things Republicans have done during the Trump era: They have used Excel spreadsheets to track the menstrual cycles of migrant women; they have electronically monitored women seeking abortion care; they have complained that the lady M&M isn’t as sexy as she used to be; they have “boycotted” Disney because Disney celebrates Pride Month; they have “boycotted” the NFL because some players advocated for racial justice; they admit to monitoring their children’s porn consumption; they make church worship songs about Donald Trump; they have died in large numbers because they refused to use a mask or get a vaccine during COVID; and they have turned into Batman villains. These are all creepy and weird. 

The road to the electoral destruction of the American fascist movement will be paved with allegations of them being weird. We must continue to point and laugh – to troll the trolls who have poisoned our politics and our loved ones. They have no defense for this line of attack. The right is helplessly, hopelessly flailing because they have never been taken so unseriously.

Their underbelly is exposed. Keep poking. 

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @cdcarter13.bsky.social and on Threads and X at @CDCarter13.