The recent appearance of the adjective “weird” in the Harris-Walz campaign to describe their opposition seems to have struck a chord with many Democrats. While some commentators fear the word diverts attention from the existential threats to democracy now facing America, the term has spread like wildfire, especially through liberal social media networks.

Choosing the word weird may signal a transformation in how the Harris-Walz campaign intends rhetorically to frame the election, at least as the Democratic National Convention draws near. More generally, the word selection reveals the importance of political rhetoric in defining how voters might think about their nation.

The former Biden-Harris campaign spent considerable time pounding home the despairing message concerning the fall of democracy. It employed rhetoric similar to what the cultural critic Kenneth Burke once called an “epic” frame. Epic rhetoric depicts noble heroes engaged in a great struggle against evil villains. Its rhetorical goal is to instill courage, to direct anger at the enemy, and to justify individual sacrifice to save a group in peril. Republicans have used similar epic rhetoric — with former President Trump as the hero, urging his supporters to sacrifice for him as he allegedly sacrificed for them, and with the so-called “radical left” they claim have “destroyed” America and who must be overcome through almost any means necessary.

In both cases, the epic frame defines the 2024 election as a life-or-death struggle in which only the strongest will survive. This epic rhetoric has an apocalyptic tone and, as such, it has elevated fear, rage, and vindictiveness as the dispositions to fight the battle and conquer the enemy. It has also left many Americans feeling cynical and despondent.

However, the word weird, supposedly conjured by vice presidential candidate Walz, rhetorically frames America differently. It employs what Burke called a “comic” frame. Comedy portrays people as fools as opposed to villains. It does not reject others for their foolishness. Rather, comedy imagines them as merely mistaken, clown-like, hindered by shortsightedness or some other human weakness.

Certainly, the Democratic version of comedy rejects MAGA Republicans and pictures their standard bearer as toxic. Still, for Harris and Walz, the comic frame seems to leave enough political elbow room for those who usually don’t vote Democrat to discover the foolishness of supporting the Republican presidential ticket.

Most importantly, Burke argues that comedy always downplays the evil people do to emphasize happiness. This is why humor is central to comedy. As Burke explains, “Humor is the opposite of the heroic” because it underscores the virtues of humility in the face of human fallibility and against excessive human pride.

Given how the comic frame functions in political rhetoric, it is unsurprising that so many Democrats appear jubilant by Harris’s choice of Gov. Walz. He masterfully weaves humor into his campaign speeches to poke fun at the opposition. Walz’s recent remark about soaring crime rates during Trump’s presidency, including Trump’s own “crimes,” is a good example of how humor disarmingly but bitingly rebukes a political foe. “Snappy but not cruel — like a normal guy telling you plainly what he thinks,” is how Lora Kelly, writing in The Atlantic, described Walz’s approach.

Walz’s rhetoric reveals that comedy can still be serious. At the same time, as several commentators have observed about the Harris-Walz campaign, humor injects “joy” and optimism, whereas before Democrats were mostly despairing and pessimistic, perhaps victims of their own dark rhetoric. Now they seem happier.

Of course, it remains to be seen how long such happiness remains. Or whether a comic frame is sustainable throughout a bitter, arduous political campaign, particularly when the stakes for American democracy could not be higher and the opposition escalates its hostile and fear-evoking attacks. Not to mention, comedies like Charlie Chaplin’s stirring 1940 satire of fascism “The Great Dictator” notwithstanding, the comic frame may not stand up well to every political threat. And Harris and Walz cannot merely laugh off people’s economic woes, imposing international crises, or Project 2025.

Still, as Burke suggested, comedy may offer our floundering, divided nation better options for conceptualizing itself. It may provide what the conservative opinion writer David Brooks described as “a sense of coherence and belonging” that contrasts sharply with Trump’s grievance-driven “gospel of American carnage” and, for that matter, Biden’s previously grim democracy under siege. In a recent campaign speech, Walz emphasized a sense of belonging when he said that everyone in attendance, regardless of age, race, occupation, class, or political affiliation, shared a common “love for our country.”

Comedy teaches that we should rarely treat those we disagree with as evil incarnate and that everyone is flawed and limited. In this, comedy might promote a more civil, ethical, and politically accommodating America that recognizes every person’s vulnerability.