"Not just weird, but creepy": JD Vance's stalker moves show the Trump campaign is fully out of ideas

Democrats are calling MAGA leaders "weird" and Donald Trump does not like it.

"They’re the weird ones. Nobody’s ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not," the former president recently whined on a right-wing podcast, a space that allows him to vent without the hours of hair and makeup he needs to be visible in public.

While Trump unconvincingly denies that he's weird, his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, appears to be leaning into the "weird" charge. As his boss camps out at Mar-a-Lago, Vance has been tailing Vice President Kamala Harris around the country while she introduces her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, to the nation. Vance shows no sign of interest in refuting the rumors of his weirdness, instead acting like an unsavory creep everywhere he goes. When asked by a reporter what makes him smile, Vance let out a fake laugh, before weirdly insisting, "President Trump in particular has the best sense of humor." This is the same Trump who recently demanded,  "Don't laugh under any circumstances" at Harris. Vance also pretends to be the presidential candidate at times, even trying to challenge Harris, not Walz, to a debate.

But what makes this all the weirder is Vance seems determined to prove correct the allegation that he's "stalking" Harris.  On Wednesday, Vance pulled an unsettling stunt. He spotted Air Force Two on a Wisconsin tarmac and chased it down in a faux attempt to "confront" Harris. Thankfully, she had left the airport already, avoiding questions about whether it was time to file for a restraining order. But his behavior did create another round of reminders that JD Vance is a nosy creep. Recall that he has even demanded that local police have access to women's medical records so they can know if patients are or may be pregnant — and can use state force to keep them that way.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

As journalist Edward Isaac-Dovere said on CNN, the stunt was "not just weird, but creepy." The whole debacle just underscores how, as Vance admitted to donors, the decision of President Joe Biden to quit the race so Harris could take over has felt like a "sucker punch" to the Trump campaign, one that they are still reeling from. Of course, even that language is childish and weird, as it feeds off Trump's rich kid-bellyaching about how unfair it is that he can't pick his political opponent. When Trump chose Vance, Biden was still in. As Atlantic reporter Tim Alberta wrote, the choice "was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter."

Or put more bluntly: Vance was chosen to appeal to the creeps and weirdoes. Now that Trump is facing a more formidable opponent, it would be smart of the GOP candidates to pivot to "normal." But Trump, an already weird dude who has grown stranger with age, can't do it. It seems neither can Vance, who spends way too much time with Holocaust deniers and Pizzagate conspiracy theorists to remember what "normal" even sounds and looks like.

Meanwhile, Harris is starting to rise in the polls, leading Trump nationally, although by slender margins no one should take for granted. Yet the Trump campaign seems stuck in the strategy they had been counting on for months against Biden: demoralize Democrat voters so they stay at home while turning out the dirtbag vote with an overtly misogynist, trolling-based campaign. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., explained the theory that they could get creepy dudes of every race with these tactics: "For every ‘Karen’ we lose, there is a ‘Julio’ and a ‘Jamal’ ready to sign up for the MAGA movement."

Frankly, it wasn't the worst theory — at least while Biden was still the candidate. The robust audiences for toxic masculinity influencers like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan prove there is a substantive constituency of gross dudes out there. Biden was struggling to get his base of voters, especially younger ones, enthused. So absolutely, Trump could win with an intense "get out the vote" effort aimed at turning out bitter divorced men, while counting on low turnout from his opponent's likely voters.

Since the Harris switch, the Trump campaign appears to be in deep denial. As reporter Dasha Burns told MSNBC on Thursday, Trump's campaign staff told her they thought, "This is an election that is still about President Biden." That's clear in how they just swapped the word "Harris" in for "Biden" without changing much else in commercials and speeches. Trump has even taken to posting elaborate fantasies on Truth Social claiming Biden will crash the Democratic National Convention "to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging to another DEBATE."

Centering the campaign around the creepy-and-weird vote was surprisingly effective against Biden, whose age-related issues made it difficult for him to call this out, much less push back on it. In that vacuum, normal people were tuning out altogether, because the election seemed grosser and sadder by the minute. The election had the same vibe as an internet forum that is becoming so overrun with trolls who regular users can't even stand to be in the room with anymore. Replacing Biden with Harris — and especially with her cheerful bulldog of a running mate, Walz — changes the dynamic considerably. By labeling MAGA as "weird," Harris and Walz have started to exact an actual price from Trump, Vance, and their acolytes for behaving the way they do. And that price is starting to show up in the polls.

But having committed to total creepiness as a campaign strategy, Trump and Vance seem stuck. Appealing to regular people seems too hard for them, so instead they keep returning to the tactic of cheap trolling to delight ugly people: Calling female athletes "men." Making fun of Harris for being biracial. Doubling down on the "miserable cat ladies" line. And now chasing Harris around on a tarmac like a weirdo trying to hand her an envelope containing a pair of her stolen underwear. No doubt these tactics delight people most of us would cross the street to avoid. But it's hard to imagine it will do much to turn the ship around for the Trump campaign.