Most eyerolling analysis I've read in awhile. I don't know why people suddenly turned against Trump but it certainly wasn't because of the term "werid".
I think weird and similar thoughts are sticking for a few reasons.
The obvious: Trump was running as the more vigorous and confident candidate and it was working very well, peaking with the debate. But Biden stunned Trump's campaign and stepped down. Trump's team seems wholly unprepared for this. Now Trump is the old guy yapping not about policy, but about how Kamala isn't black. It's cringe.
Vance. Trump picked a carbon copy of himself (or a guy pretending to be a carbon copy of him, anyway) but when Vance says these Trumpian things they sound well, weird, coming from a 39 year old guy. For a young guy to be saying that childless adults have less value and should have fewer votes is damn weird. But if Trump said it, it wouldn't even make the news.
I think the article is right in that you can call Trump and Vance weird without directly insulting their followers. But I also think another subtlety is that is doesn't distance the left from the right as much as other attacks might. You're not calling Trump Hitler and immediately raising the hackles of a conservative and forcing him to dig in against you.
Yes, yes, yes. It's also sticks though. It's hard to defend against without proving the point, and it's already an easy point to prove.
That's, I think, why it's landing so well. These are weird, weird people. We've all been thinking it and saying it to each other. Remember they did that press conference at a landscape supply company? Wtf?
But their weirdness didn't become Zeitgeist, until, I think the biggest thing, it's finally coming from the bully pulpit.
Corporate media was never going to point out how their ownership class and their bullshit are completely weird, but the bully pulpit is called that because it cannot be ignored. My two cents on it. Agree with your post wholly, too.