Welcome, Governor Walz!

Welcome, Gov. Walz!

Parties aside, let’s see how genuineness plays against falsity and self-betrayal.

Walz and his wife are teachers. Walz is a good guy, whose affability and good nature made him a quick favorite with Kamala Harris’s staff. Those qualities helped him challenge and whip a six-term U.S. Congressman in a red district that went red again when Walz became governor. You figure he’s also tough when he has to be. He did coach football.

J.D. Vance is a fake. Whereas Walz has made his six-year governorship about actually helped average folks, Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy celebrates his personal success and suggests others were lazy. Vance, though fairly conservative, loathed Donald Trump as a dangerous demagogue until Trump became a convenient handhold for Vance to climb the political cliffs.

Whereas Walz initially upset an entrenched opponent, Vance ducked, the first time he considered running for the Senate, as a non-Trump Republican, but later ran from the safer position of Trump bootlicker. Vance won the VP nomination by aping Trump’s angry rhetoric and insults. Walz prevailed through humility, cooperativeness, and a clear commitment to his ideals.

Walz is right about Trump and Vance being “weird dudes.” How does Vance feel, happily married to an Indian woman, when Mr. Trump regularly insults non-Caucasians, and mocks Harris for wearing a sari on a visit to her mother’s family’s home in India? Does Vance contemplate his close law school friend, a transsexual, when demonizing such people publicly. Walz noted that Trump never laughs, except at people. We also never hear of close personal friends of Trump, or even a dog – let alone a cat!

Trump’s team will attack Walz’s record – as they’re currently blaming VP Harris for the stock-market dip. (Did Harris also cause Simone Biles’s fall the other day?) Minnesota Republicans opposed much that he’s accomplished, using a Democratic trifecta he helped create. They’ll say he spent too much money helping people. They’ll say he didn’t call out the national guard quickly enough after the George Floyd killing. (Oops – Trump praised Walz’s response.) Walz successfully governs a “swing state,” rolling up his sleeves and getting a lot done, while consistently displaying character and integrity.

They’re attacking the choice as antisemitic, because it wasn’t Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. I’m half-Jewish, but hoped Harris wouldn’t pick Shapiro amidst a controversial war. I wouldn’t have picked a Palestinian, either. (I’m betting Harris’s Jewish husband doesn’t think she’s antisemitic.)

The allegation is hilarious. Shapiro is a Jewish Democratic Governor. One of three, nationally. All Democrats. Last October, nine states were represented by Jewish U.S. Senators. All Dems. And Diane Feinstein had just left. There is no Jewish Republican U.S. senator. None. The last was Arlen Specter, who switched to Democrat in 2009! Of the 24 Jews in the House, only two are Republican. How come Speaker Johnson ain’t complaining about that.

One reporter described Walz’s “‘happy-go-lucky’ warrior manner and joyful presence.” Trumpist commentator David Brody of Christian Broadcast Network said Harris and Walz “were VERY good tonight in Philadelphia. She came across as measured, confident and fully in control. It was an optimistic speech full of hope and change (cue 2008). Meanwhile, Walz showed off his folksy and feisty Midwestern persona."

Joy and hope ain’t a bad recipe, so long as you recall that not everyone feels joyous in these tough times. So far, it’s baffling Mr. Trump.

Will we be dancing the Kamala Waltz November 5th?

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[The above column appeared Sunday, 11 August, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[We should add that in 2004 a teacher took his students to a George Bush rally to see citizenship and politics in action. Security noticed on one student’s wallet a sticker favoring Bush’s opponent, John Kerry. Security therefore denied entry to the group. The teacher was so appalled that he volunteered to help the Kerry campaign, ending up as head of Veterans for Kerry in his state. Later he took a sort of “beginner’s boot camp” run by some associates of the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (known for his powerful integrity and fairness of mind, dead from an airplane crash in 2002) to help everyday folks who might want to try to run for office. The teacher went, and later made the crazy decision to challenge an entrenched Republican U.S. Congressman. The teacher, Tim Walz, won. That’s a “made-in-America” origin story people should reflect on.]

[Walz initiated the “weirdness” line regarding Trump and Vance. It seems to have worked well. Aside from Mr. Trump’s narcissism, disinclination to laugh unless its’ at someone in a sardonic way, and the absence of pets in Trump’s life, Mr. Trump, as a columnist noted, “repeatedly mentions Hannibal Lecter at his rallies, speaking about the fictional cannibal as though he were a real person. 'He’s a lovely man. He’d love to have you for dinner,' must be one of the strangest things a candidate has said while trying to attract votes.”

[Ruth Ben-Giat, an expert on authoritarian dictators has noted that it’s laughter that most angered them. (see Matthew Chapman story on Raw Story. Authoritarians have no problem with being called evil, but they despise being called weird — because it means they aren't being taken seriously; it means they're being made fun of, rather than feared. They understand that when they become subjects of satire, people necessarily question everything about them.

Despots don’t mind orchestrating sadistic spectacles riduling or punishing others, but can’t abide being the target of jokes. (Is that why a key motivating moment for Mr. Trump finally to run for president was being publicly made fun of by President Barack Obama at a gala dinner/roast in New York?) The expert gave as an example an Italian who named his pet rabbit Mussolini, in fascist Italy, and took it to a bar so others could enjoy watching him order it around. That joke cost the man a year in jail.

"When we laugh together, fear and distrust lessen, which is the opposite of what authoritarians want," Ben-Giat concluded. "That, too, is why such leaders can’t take a joke."]

[Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the same Sun-News Opinion Page contained an op-ed from an Ingrid Jacquez calling Walz’s progressive programs in Minnesota, such as free school-lunches, “socialistic.” That’s an old-style attack. Neither pure socialism nor pure capitalism ultimately works out very well. Any successful government has to merge the two a bit, toward a government that values enterprise and creativity but maintains compassion and justice for those capitalism spits out or leaves behind. Minnesota seems to be doing that. ]