Democrats have deployed "weird" as an insult to attack Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). The word is suddenly constant among left-wing pundits.
Apparently the insult is meant to appeal to young and female voters in particular, for whom "weird" is a catch-all term for everything bad, creepy, or threatening.
But there is nothing immediately "weird" or odd about Vance, save for his beard: there hasn't been a bearded male on a presidential ticket since the late nineteenth century.
The only thing unusual about Vance is his biography. Raised in working-class Appalachia, he overcame the difficult circumstances of his family life. He joined the Marines, graduated from Ohio State, and went on to Yale Law School.
That's not "weird"; that's extraordinary. And it is a journey that the left celebrated before Vance decided to enter the political arena. But suddenly, the elements of that journey are being described as sinister, threatening, and strange.
What is most "weird" about Vance, apparently, is his Christian faith (he embraced Catholicism) and his working-class origins.
To this day, the country's elite struggles to accept the fact that rural working-class voters choose Republicans; they describe it as an odd phenomenon, since they assume that the Democrats' redistributionist policies are better for Vance's constituents than the dignity of jobs in the mines and factories that the climate-change lobby wants to close.
To describe the rural, Christian working class as "weird" is to display a kind of contempt that has become increasingly blatant in the Democratic Party after the Bill Clinton era. It is a classist slur, one that suggests the bicoastal elites to whom "weird" is pitched have no idea who lives in flyover country, who built the heartland. "Weird" turns the rural working class into strangers in their own country.
That is why Trump will win their vote: Democrats deserve to lose it.
This is my first broadcast from the new office and studio in Washington, DC, where I'll be for a couple of years my neighborhood back in L.A. cleans up -- and as we follow the Trump administration from a little closer up than usual.
Topics:
- The anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump
- The escalating tariff battle with various different trading partners
- The future of the Middle East peace talks, and ongoing antisemitism
- The Jeffrey Epstein files and whether they mean anything at all
- The continued crisis of the Texas floods, and stories of heroism and survival
And more!
Special guests:
- James Rosen - Newsmax chief Washington correspondent
- Bob Price - Breitbart News Texas reporter, on the ongoing floods
- Robert Cahill - Trafalgar Polling, on a new alliance of reliable pollsters
- Rabbi Yaakov Menken - Coalition for Jewish Values - on Israel & antisemitism
Tune in: 7-10 p.m. ET, 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week’s portion tells the grand story of the prophet who tried to curse people of Israel and instead ended up blessing them.
I am reminded that these portions continue to be relevant anew, as this particular reading lent the title for Israel’s recent 12 Day War against Iran, “Operation Rising Lion.”
This week's portion includes the commandment of the red heifer -- one of the classic "irrational" commandments whose fulfillment is an expression of faith. It also includes the regrettable episode in which Moses strikes the rock.
I referred to this story in a wedding speech last night. Why was Moses punished for striking the rock in Numbers, when he struck the rock without incident in Exodus -- both for the purpose of providing water to the people?
The answer is that in the interim, the Jewish people had received the Torah, which is like the marriage contract between the people of Israel and God. In a marriage, you do not resolve things by breaking boundaries, but through love.
The additional reading, from Judges Chapter 11, is the story of Jephthah (Yiftach), a man whom the leaders spurn, but to whom they must turn to save the nation. The parallels to our present political circumstances are striking.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Fourth of July!
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