Growing up I was told I was weird, not normal. Small and skinny with curly hair that stood on end, because my mom put a bowl on my head and cut around it. My horrible eyesight was not discovered until the third grade. I could not see anything that was not a foot or two from my face. I doodled on everything I could get my hands on, got horrible grades in school, was a total discipline problem up until my semi blindness was discovered. In the first and second grade I was known as Bitey Bite. I would take a chomp out of anyone who threatened me. Once I could see, I was even weirder looking in my outsized bottle bottom eyeglasses. While I continued to doodle on every surface, I was now considered smart, artistic and weird. As the sixties dawned, I began to exploit my weirdness. Bigger, crazier hair, make up in flower motifs, my clothing a combination of my mom’s 30’s and 40’s stuff and my own creations. At 15 I discovered drugs. By high school graduation in 1969, I was the weirdest person in my class of 600. At a 50 year reunion, classmates told my husband that everyone knew who I was.
In today’s world what is normal, what is weird? Tim Walz said Trump followers are weird. Donald Trump says Tim Walz is retarded. I read this quote from a Republican about an election that was just barely won, in a supposed Trump loving district. “I’m glad we won. But the GOP should not ignore the Virginia, New Jersey and Tennessee elections,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is retiring from his swingy Omaha-based district, said. “We must reach swing voters. America wants some normalcy.”
Is Trump weird and if so is there a spectrum of weirdness from benign or creative to toxic? I don’t think most of us actually see the full range of Trumpian, toxic weirdness. Mainstream news tries so hard to be normal that they do not print or broadcast the full range of what comes out of Trump’s mouth. John Stewart’s Daily Show often plays the babbling of this mad man. Disjointed, random comments spill from his mouth in rapid succession. He reminds me of some of my dad’s drunk friends that my mom labeled as “stupid’. But, this is not some backwoods Minnesota drunk, this is the president of the United States. So, what made these “swing voters” swing toward toxic weirdness the first and second time around, and why would they suddenly want some normalcy now? And really what is normal? I contend that one can be weird, yet be brilliant, kind, creative, thoughtful, caring and eccentric like Bernie Sanders. So let’s not disparage weirdness.
Then there is the appearance of normalcy, while underneath, hidden is toxicity, manipulation and lies. In the past those that sought to harm and marginalize people of color, women, immigrants and the LQBTQ community, did it with a veneer of normalcy. On the surface it all sounded normal, nothing to worry about, yet our rights, safety, happiness and the whole planet are being destroyed, as we are manipulated by normalcy. I am not saying I applaud the weird, toxic insanity that is Trump, his followers and the majority of the Republican Party, I am saying we need to look deeper to find the truth.
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