Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz embodies everything liberal women see in their own fathers – except for their political views. For some, it makes them hopeful but also very sad.
He’s got jokes, enthusiasm and a smiley face that’s not even remotely trying to hide how he’s feeling. He’s Tim Walz- and he’s bringing major Midwestern dad energy to the Democratic ticket.
At least that’s how many white women feel when they see Walz in videos, riding the Slingshot at the state fair with his daughter, signing legislation to give kids in Minnesota free lunches or tweeting about his pet cat.
It’s in stark contrast to what some see in their own fathers - who often have more conservative political views.
“He is silly. My dad used to be very, very silly and goofy,” Pamela Wurst Vetrini, a woman who recently compared Walz to her father, said in a viral TikTok video.
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“A lot of us had moderate to conservative, educated, sensible fathers that we lost to Rush Limbaugh. That we lost to Fox News. That we lost to Donald Trump. And the cult of conservatism that has grown and grown and grown has driven a wedge between millennial woman and her father,” she said.
I think Tim Walz is very important, because he shows that “regular,” working class, middle aged men don’t HAVE to be conservative. We don’t have to believe in baseless conspiracy theories, we don’t have to reject scientific evidence, we don’t have to divorce ourselves from reality. We don’t have to believe that vaccines are evil, that climate change is a hoax, or that the 2020 election was stolen. Maybe we don’t agree with everything the liberals say and do, but that doesn’t mean we have to go full ding dong and start listening to Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro. There are other options and Tim Walz is representative of at least one of those alternatives.
Not to mention that he shows that you can be both masculine AND change your mind about things. Even letting your children change your mind. Shocking!
That’s a really important point. For some reason, many men think it’s somehow a sign of weakness to be wrong about something, or to admit that someone knows more about something than you do. I think you look weak if you refuse to admit when you’re wrong and double down on some ignorant position out of stubbornness.
The fact that so many blue collar people are conservative when they could just as easily be liberals amazes me. Democrats are the ones who want unions, better environment, better labor rights, better working conditions, but somehow the conservatives are really good at lying and making propaganda.
A large part of the issue is that the Democratic Party (and Labour in the UK, and the Liberals in Canada) really drank the third-way neoliberal koolaid in the 1990s and have done a poor job of speaking to the anxieties and concerns of the poor.
The political right has talked to those anxieties, albeit in a dishonest, manipulative and disingenuous way, but they do talk to it and–not only do they talk to it, they deliver results. Again, dishonest, manipulative and self-serving results, but if you don’t look to closely it looks like they’re taking action.
I’m hoping Harris and Walz mark a new era, but after witnessing Trudeau in Canada and Starmer in the UK continuing to make the mistakes of the 1990s, I’m not holding my breath.
Had a good friend of 30 years, tell me over the phone that my kids and I should be shot because I didn’t immediately feel sorry for Trump being shot at.
I told him, “This is a direct result of pushing division, guns being able to be bought with amazing ease, and it will probably happen again.”
He said, “I wish the same thing that happened to Trump to happen to you and your kids.” and hung up.
Friendship over. I’m not being friends with anyone who wishes my kids to be killed.
I lost a few people to Fox News. Neighbors, in-laws.
Maybe lost isn’t the right word. Those who tried to rebuild the relationship often start with accusations like “When will you wake up that the libs & immigrants are going to cause Armageddon?” Or some racist bullshit.
i heard immigrant friends say that, they keep sending me links to x.com 🤦, far right media is a hardcore drug
Send them links to xvideos.com
Walz is what I imagine my parents would be like if my parents had actually believed the moral lessons they taught me as a kid
The probably did at the time. There must be something in the water, or after effects of leaded gasoline, or something.
I am from norway so I only see this slow train wreck from the sidelines, but how the heck else can that wierd clown DT have a cult of personality. It boggles the mind.
Usually the refrain is “you’ll get more conservative as you get older”.
What they means is “… as you get more wealthy*”.
* i.e. as in own their home, retire, etc.
It doesn’t help that since the 1970’s, we’ve made it nearly impossible for boomers to retire without exploiting the labor of others.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
Add in a dose of fear, and baby you got a stew goin’
Turns out 9/11 REALLY broke a lot of people’s brains. Bin Laden would be loving this shit, because it was probably the most effective attack on a nation-state ever.
Yeah, 9/11 was such a sea change in how people reacted to the world. It didn’t help that it coincided with the extraordinarily fast explosion of the internet. I knew people who went from just normal people to wishing to turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot. 9/11 was like a light switch that turned people into hate machines, and it happened in 2001 when normal people were going from dial-up to always-on DSL and cable internet so the amplification power of the internet and forwarded emails just turned that hate to 11.
This kind of right wing populism has sadly arrived here in Europe as well. Here in Germany we have the AFD which basically does the same thing.
My mother, her boyfriend and my brother have sadly also fallen into the right wing disinformation trap, it really sucks, its like a thought virus.
At least I still have my other half of the family whith which I can still have some political discussions where everyone enjoys doing it and its more about smaller details and how to turn the theory into practice.
This is the thing that gets me the most… I’m like this because of you. Thanks, I guess?
Maybe they should have been sitting right next to me and paying attention to every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Sesame Street like I did. Seems like they could have learned a lot.
Or I dunno, maybe I got lucky by not having a rapey children’s (and later, youth) pastor who actually taught valuable lessons while the adults were being radicalized in the main sanctuary (ew, as someone who hasn’t stepped into a church for anything besides weddings and funerals for 20 years or so, just typing that word feels gross).
My dad died to cancer four years ago. He was my hero. UNTIL he became a red hat wearing piece of shit. I was sad obviously, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it would have if he was still my dad. I lost all the respect I ever had for him.
