Is Trumpism “Weird?” Or Is It Perhaps Even Worse?

Most of us would agree that Trump and his support base are “weird,” in the sense that everything these people stand for: the pathological hatred of immigrants, the rejection of science, the peeling back of human rights, etc.  represent giant steps backward into the Dark Ages.

Most people would say that it’s a weird direction to be taken by a large segment of American society.  Yet the word doesn’t begin to capture the essence of what we are encountering here.

To call a person or a group “weird” means little else than that they don’t conform to our cultural norms.  I may say that my neighbor is weird because he comes outside in his underwear, or that a certain religious cult has weird beliefs.

But what we have here is better described as evil than weird.  Did any of the survivors of Hitler or Stalin describe their tormentors as “weird?”

Is this the best we can do to describe pure Trumpism? Is it proper to say that an attempt to overthrow the United States government is weird?