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.”
Quite the opposite, it’s a strong and brave position to take when the most visible champions of “manhood” are people who view it as a synonym for mean and dominant— see the current GOP ticket.
People like Gov. Walz stand in distinct and deliberate contrast to this. It’s not trite at all it’s earnest and inviting.
And yet I still think Pete Buttigieg would not get to be a vision of manhood if he were the Vice candidate.
He absolutely would, strong mayor who grew up in the Midwest doing the same sort of stuff Walz did. Pete has a very impressive military career and is a proud father and husband. He’s not a football coach, but has often talked about his love of the game (hard not to love it when you’re the mayor of South Bend). And he’s downright vicious in his “Midwest nice” approach to media hits. Dude’s an amazing picture of all that masculinity can be.
Between their username and playing the Buttigieg Card (I have no problems with Pete) I think you are wasting your time
Don’t you see how your vision of what masculinity can be still focuses on his military service and his love of football?
Maybe he could be accepted by patriarchal heterocisnormative society as an example of masculinity. Maybe. I don’t think it would go that way. I think he’d be treated like a model minority and “one of the good ones”, used to denigrate other gay men for not being sufficiently masculine. His traditionally masculine qualities would be played up and anything that subverted that would be downplayed and ignored.
Play up his role as husband and father, play down his actually existing husband, etc.
I think he would. He’s a gay man who served in the military and is currently starting a family. And he’s been doing that. He’s been doing the TV circuit railing against JD Vance trying to be who defines what masculinity and family values are and emphasizing that all it takes to be a man is to self identify as one, and all it takes to be a family is love
Most media outlets wouldn’t treat him that way because he has a husband, sexist coverage would ensure people only focus on how he’s violating masculine norms instead of portraying his masculinity as legitimate.
