MAGA Weird
MAGA Weird
Share these tips with more local reporters
Top Story: MAGA Weird
For years, Democrats have been on the defensive against a skilled MAGA media machine that has mocked all that Democrats support and fed the nation a diet of lies.
But this past week, the tables finally turned. The radicalized GOP with its extreme Project 2025 agenda, its election-denying presidential choice, and its VP Vance pick has finally come under the kind of scrutiny that sticks.
The Democrats’ message is now clear even to folks who don't pay a lot of attention to politics: MAGA folks aren't just a danger. They're downright weird. And their seemingly never-ending obsession with women’s personal healthcare, military weapons, other people’s sex lives, book banning, and pornography is just plain creepy.
This national conversation is likely happening on your beat, too. Write about it.
Here’s how:
Story Ideas for the “MAGA Weird” phenomenon
Man-On-The-Street
With the national chatter centering on the sheer weirdness of MAGA World, what are the folks on your beat saying and thinking? Is the characterization trickling down? Is it resonating for Democrats in your community? Do they think the leaders and candidates in the radicalized GOP are weird? Why?
We’re Not Weird!
MAGA World isn’t happy. Interview local MAGA Republicans, Trump sycophants, members of Moms for Liberty, and the folks who now lead your local radicalized GOP. How do they feel about being called weird? Let them know what policies and positions people find weird — i.e., their obsessions with book-banning, pornography, guns, women’s personal health, IVF, and other people’s religions and their marriages. Give voice to their concerns about this new moniker.
Harris-Fever
While Trump and JD Vance are grappling with the “weird” word, staving off allegations that they’re creepy and out-of-touch, Dems are falling in love with their new candidate Kamala Harris. Write about Harris-fever. How is it manifesting itself, what are people doing, how has their mood changed. And what does this mean for the local GOP in your community?
In The News
How the Minnesota Governor Tim Walz launched the “Trump is weird” phenomenon.
When Trump learned about biracial people for the first time.
Best way to cover Project 2025: Follow the money.
Project 2025: And its plan to destroy rural America.
We’re Reading
“Words to Win By - The Slogans, Logos and Designs of America’s Presidential Elections”
Comic Relief
If You Like What You Are Reading:
Please share Reporting Right on your social media feeds.
Reach out for help at ReportingRight@googlegroups.com.
Tell your fellow reporters to subscribe.
See You Next Week!
Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Managing Editor Christen Gall
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Reed Gallen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Tell your fellow reporters to subscribe
Copyright (C) 2024. All rights reserved.
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can subscribe, update your preferences, or unsubscribe.