The joyful Minnesota governor is a valuable spokesperson for Harris whose background and personality can help the Democratic ticket undermine Trump’s efforts to woo America’s men.
Tim Walz’s first official speech on the Democratic ticket displayed all the reasons that Kamala Harris has been lauded for picking the Minnesota governor as her running mate. Personally, I think one outshines all the rest.
Walz’s military background and his work as a high school teacher and football coach, along with his palpable joy and open expressions of compassion for people in need, offer America a vision of what manhood can look like — he’s a “joyful warrior” offering a vision in contrast with what’s being offered by Donald Trump’s bravado-driven campaign.
And he’s clearly willing to challenge Team Trump on that front. He displayed that even before he received the call to join Harris’ campaign, using public appearances to refer to Trump and his allies as “bullies” who are truly weak at heart and by mocking the GOP ticket for “running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something.”
You’re missing the point. He did those things and isn’t a complete and utter tool as a result. They aren’t his identity or opportunities to “be manly.” They were acts of service.
I think the most egregious examples of “toxic masculinity” are the men who think that since they’re so Alpha, the world owes them everything on their own terms. Like the President who us so upset that the hurricane went the other way that he has to “prove” he was right all along. Or the Senator who prefers to be called “Coach” because he likes to think of himself as the Big Man On Campus, and not 1 of 100 equals. Or even the incel living in his parents’ basement who is so bitter about not having a girlfriend because he can’t understand that girls are humans too and don’t exist just to please him.
Walz is refreshing because it’s clear that he went into Politics to make a difference, not to make a profit. We’ve been conditioned to think all politicians are greedy assholes, probably by the politicians who prefer it that way because it lets them get away with shit. Then this guy comes along, with genuine integrity, and it threatens to collapse it all.
Republicans have built a political movement out of the belief that all government is bloated and ineffectual. If Democrats start electing people who can show that Government can be a net benefit to ordinary people, it kills 50+ years of Republican messaging.
Republicans have built a political movement out of the belief that all government is bloated and ineffectual
They complain about that when they’re not in power, and then demonstrate exactly that whenever they happen to be in power.
You’re missing the point. He did those things and isn’t a complete and utter tool as a result. They aren’t his identity or opportunities to “be manly.” They were acts of service.
You’re missing the underlying assumption, which is that military and football are for men. They’re “typical man things” and Walz is showing that a man doing manly things doesn’t have to be an asshole.
But that still assumes there are manly things, that armed service and football are manly. Subtext.
It doesn’t assume that they are “typically manly” it observes that they are traditionally considered manly. A statement over which there isn’t an argument to be had.
It presents traditionally manly things as a “vision of what manhood can look like” as if it’s revolutionary. It’s trite.
You are missing the point.
That’s what MAGA assumes.
And Walz is there to prove their assumptions wrong.
I can also tell you that most military personnel I met in my life were not ‘manly’ people in any way. Just normal and decent people.
It’s MAGA mongoloids that link military to manhood. Or guns. Or football. Or beer.
Edit: and what is really amusing to me is that zi am not American, nor life there, but I did get excited about Walz. Because he seems like a normal human being. Imagine how crazy the world is when we get excited about (apparently) a normal human being in politics.
While more progressive people have recognized the pointlessness of gendering military service and playing football, conservatives haven’t and its something we can use to our advantage. Like the entire calling them weird thing. It’s literally the kind of insult a 5 year old would come up with but they’re absolutely blowing gaskets over it and it’s hilarious.
Know your enemy and you’ll have the advantage.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I had to add the whole English version quote because just saying know your enemy isn’t really what this phrase represents.
