The gravitational pull of political discourse shifted last week with the use of one word: weird. As in “Republicans are weird,” or  “J.D. Vance is a weird guy,” or “Donald Trump? Kind of weird.” It’s not clear who used the line first – whether it was Minnesota Governor and current contender to become Kamala Harris’s VP pick, Tim Walz, or Vice President Harris herself – but it has since taken off like wildfire. Currently, a Google search for the word “weird” turns up headlines from The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and a dozen other outlets, all covering what is arguably the most concise and devastating hit on an opponent American politics has seen in at least two decades.