Trump Is ‘Weird,’ Vance Is ‘Creepy.’ Finally, the Democrats Start Name-Calling.

Snowflakes. Groomers. Cucks.

For years the MAGA movement has approached politics the way a bully would approach a schoolyard, sparring with labels so nasty, they seemed expressly chosen to appeal to the kind of people who stuffed nerds in lockers in sixth grade. And for years Democrats, abiding by the mantra to go high, not low, have responded by trying to be the adults in the room: defending themselves with facts, with context, with earnest explanations that nobody remembers (if they defend themselves at all).

The problem is that taking the high road only works if politics is a sport played mainly by people who act like grown-ups, which it is not. And also: Facts and context don’t make for particularly sticky messaging.

Enter: Weird.

Over the past two weeks, as “Brat” and coconut memes have taken over the internet and Kamala Harris inches closer to Donald Trump in the polls, the Democrats have finally gone low, deploying a bit of verbal jujitsu so delightfully petty it might just work.

I first noticed “weird” in a news release put out by the Harris camp last week, in which her communications team, newly liberated from the previous candidate’s boomer syntax, recapped an interview Mr. Trump did on Fox News. Asking “Is Donald Trump OK?,” the Harris campaign detailed a list of takeaways from the interview. Among them: “Trump is old and quite weird?”

Not long after, the campaign sent another email, this one wishing a “Happy World I.V.F. Day to Everyone Except JD Vance” — an excuse to highlight the G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee’s statements on abortion, as well as his strange comments about “childless cat ladies.” That was followed by a post on X, proclaiming: “JD Vance is weird and creepy.”

Weird and creepy. Simple, gut-punching words. Not a threat to democracy or a menace to the “soul of America,” not even “dangerous.” Nope, in the progressive vernacular of the moment, Mr. Trump and his party are just a bunch of weirdos, making weird policy proposals, weird comments about women, weird fashion choices and weirder shoe choices and promoting even weirder conspiracies. And of course, as any sixth grader who’s been called weird — or worse, “creepy” — by his peers knows, good luck trying to argue your way out.