The comedian and podcaster used his huge platform to spread more COVID disinformation, talk up Alex Jones and Elon Musk, and reveal an odd obsession with gay sex.
They’d first need to make “weird” an exclusionary term referring only to their particular weirdness, and nobody else. Foreign cultures, obscure hobbies, unusual sexual kinks, religious cults, psychedelic countercurrents and so on don’t get to be “weird” unless they’re part of the conservative counterrevolution. Which would require effectively stripping the word of its meaning. And then, a short time later, somebody would point out that they’re no closer to the great American norm they profess to defend than all these this that used to be called weird.
Also, “in the world but not of the world” may work for initiates into the cult, but is no good for convincing swing voters that one represents the Silent Majority. Fundamentalists need to couch their dogma (no pun intended) in rationalisations that sound like something a normal person who’s not a cultist might believe.
They’d first need to make “weird” an exclusionary term referring only to their particular weirdness, and nobody else. Foreign cultures, obscure hobbies, unusual sexual kinks, religious cults, psychedelic countercurrents and so on don’t get to be “weird” unless they’re part of the conservative counterrevolution. Which would require effectively stripping the word of its meaning. And then, a short time later, somebody would point out that they’re no closer to the great American norm they profess to defend than all these this that used to be called weird.
Also, “in the world but not of the world” may work for initiates into the cult, but is no good for convincing swing voters that one represents the Silent Majority. Fundamentalists need to couch their dogma (no pun intended) in rationalisations that sound like something a normal person who’s not a cultist might believe.