If You Want A Picture Of The Future, Imagine Children Hugging Tim Walz Forever
If You Want A Picture Of The Future, Imagine Children Hugging Tim Walz Forever
The VP choice you can trust alone with a couch.
Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris officially became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. She’s the first woman of color to top a major party ticket. Back in March, just five months ago, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker declared in an op-ed, “For the country’s sake, Vice President Harris should step aside.” See, Parker, like many very serious pundits at the time, believed that President Joe Biden’s dismal polling against Donald Trump was somehow Harris’s fault and he could close the gap if he swapped her out with a swing state governor like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer or Taylor Swift.
However, ultimately it was Biden who stepped aside for the country’s sake, and Harris has improved upon Biden’s numbers in every way, putting the fear of Biracial God into Trump and his MAGA cult. Now, Harris has picked her own 2024 running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who appears behind Harris in the photo illustration for Parker’s “Harris must go” column.
A lot can change in five months.
Who is Tim Walz and why do you love him?
Just a couple days after Biden dropped out of the race, Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, was a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where he called out Trump and his peculiar running mate J.D. Vance’s hateful, divisive rhetoric but in the most midwestern nice manner possible. (Watch below.)
“You look at what [Trump and Vance] are talking about. They went right to division,” Walz said. “We do not like what has happened where we can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary … These guys are just weird.”
The Democratic Governors Association knew Walz was onto something: The Morning Joe clip was reposted on social media, and the account’s next post plastered Walz’s now famous line — “These guys are weird” — over a photo of Vance with Republican Governors Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Ron DeSantis, Brian Kemp, Glen Youngkin, and Kim Reynolds.
Walz told MSNBC’s Jenn Psaki, “You know there's something wrong with people when they talk about freedom: freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird. They come across as weird. They seem obsessed with this.” (Watch below.)
Democrats quickly coalesced around the Walz-inspired “weird” messaging, which altered the dynamic of the race, putting Republicans on the defensive. Less than a month ago, a gunman shot at Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one of his supporters. Republicans didn’t hesitate to exploit the shooting, claiming without evidence that Democrats had inspired the attempted assassination by correctly painting Trump as an existential threat to democracy. With the help of an obliging media, they hoped to force Democrats into unilateral disarmament. Walz perhaps single-handedly changed all that. Now, Republicans are left fuming and whining that Democrats are giving them rhetorical swirlies.
Despite Walz’s impressive achievement, there are some who argued that Harris should’ve given him a Jelly of the Month Club membership as a thank you and instead selected Gov. Josh Shapiro from must-win Pennsylvania
“Rather than pick the very popular governor of a neck-and-neck must-win purple state, Harris chose a dime-a-dozen blue-state governor who gives feels to progressives,” writer Damon Linker complained. “That’s about what I’d have expected from her a month ago.”
Like Kathleen Parker, Linker has never thought much of Harris, and he’s only grudgingly supported her to the extent that her choices have made sense to him. However, it makes no sense to dismiss Walz as a “dime-a-dozen blue-state governor.” After Minnesota Democrats gained full control of the legislature in 2022, Walz signed into law bills offering paid family and medical leave, free breakfast and lunch for all students, a child tax credit, and major climate initiatives and labor reforms. He also dedicated a highway to native son Prince, which is when he won my vote. Walz rightly scoffs at the notion that this makes him out of step with the mainstream (you know, “weird”).
“What a monster!” he said during a CNN interview. “Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions. And we’re a top-five business state and we also rank in the top three of happiness.”
Jonathan Chait warned on Tuesday that “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Need to Pivot to the Center Right Now” (with an annoying white dude invocation of Black slang in the subhed).
Harris is mostly considered “far left” for cultural reasons: She’s a Black woman from San Francisco. However, she has spent the past few weeks pivoting to the center, moderating her positions on fracking and universal health care. Walz is a normal center-left politician. He’s a veteran, a former substitute teacher and high school football coach. Bottom line, he’s likable in every way J.D. Vance isn’t.
Walz is hardly a wide-eyed socialist. As governor of Minnesota, his policy positions aren’t drastically different from senator of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar, who pundits like Chait hailed back in 2020 as a “midwest moderate.”
No, Harris didn’t deliberately snub Jewish people
We live in weird times. I was once accused of antisemitism when I criticized Julianna Margulies, a Jewish actor, for making racist statements about Black people. So, it’s not a shock that the Klan Robe Party has the gall to claim that Harris picked Walz over Shapiro because Democrats don’t like that he’s Jewish. Erick Erickson, who’s not Jewish, posted on social media, “No Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded bluntly, “News to me.” Not only is Amy Schumer’s cousin Jewish, but so is Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (his mother was a Holocaust survivor), and National Intelligence Director Avril Haines.
Vance told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt, “They will not have picked Shapiro frankly because of antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party . . . The far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish American.” This lie demands that you literally forget that Bernie Sanders exists. And it’s not like Vance is Jewish. Neither were the other major Republican VP contenders, many of whom were actually qualified. When Trump picked Vance, he snubbed Tim Scott, Marco Rubio, and Nikki Haley. Unlike Walz, there is no compelling rationale for the unpopular, extremely weird Vance, whose paper-thin resume reinforces that this is restricted country club ticket.
Harris picked Walz over several other non-Jewish candidates, including Sen. Mark Kelly from Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. A former prosecutor and attorney general, Shapiro is arguably too similar to Harris. He also attended a fancy law school (the same one as my wife, but her elite credentials faded when she married me). In that regard, Walz is a better contrast to Yale-educated Vance, who Walz said he can’t wait to debate if Vance will “get off the couch and show up.” (Watch below and laugh.)
Yes, Shapiro is very popular in Pennsylvania, but that wouldn’t automatically translate to a presidential ticket. People are often more willing to cross party lines for governor than they are for senator and president. John Kerry’s running mate was a sitting senator from North Carolina, and George W. Bush still carried the state by double digits.
Labor unions clearly prefer Walz to Shapiro, and their support will prove critical in the Rust Belt. Shapiro’s positions on school vouchers and COVID restrictions would have likely divided the party while not directly adding any voters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Joe Manchin both praised Walz’s selection, and that’s probably the first time they ever agreed on anything.
Walz on the ticket builds enthusiasm and maintains momentum. According to NBC News, ActBlue processed more than $2.5 million in donations in the hour after Harris’s campaign revealed she’d picked Walz. Massive lines soon formed in Philadelphia to see the Harris/Walz ticket together for the first time. I’d advise ignoring the cranky center-right pundits and gaslighting Republicans and just enjoy the good vibes.
I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber for $80 a year or just $8 a month, if you’re not already. This helps sustain the newsletter and keeps all the content free for everyone.
Follow Stephen Robinson on Bluesky and Threads.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel for more fun content.
This is the first time I’ve read that Walz was a substitute teacher. My understanding is that he was the geography/social studies teacher, as well as coach at the high school. A substitute teacher would likely not be selected to be a faculty advisor to any student group.
It is so nice to see genuine joy on young faces and spontaneous, unforced hugs. And to see it after a decade of nearly daily insults towards women, accounts of forced sex with minors, and demeaning speech in general about gender diversity, minorities, women and immigrants is nearly overwhelming.