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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.”
In his Philadelphia speech Tuesday, Walz showed he wants all the smoke with JD Vance in a vice presidential debate, saying that he’s excited for the event to happen — “that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.” That burn, a passing reference to a crude joke about Vance that spread on social media, was affirmation for me: This is a man willing and ready to challenge toxic MAGA masculinity.
I don’t think I’m alone in my belief. I’ve been seeing posts on social media praising Walz for embodying a more refreshing and humane idea of manhood than anything conservatives are offering. And Harris seems to understand that, as well.
In her speech introducing Walz to voters, Harris took time to lay out his “tough guy” bona fides but smartly laid out how they gave him a compassionate perspective. She mentioned that Walz is an elite marksman who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before explaining that he supports gun safety laws. She delved into his success as a high school teacher and championship-winning football coach — referring to him as “Coach Walz” multiple times — before explaining that he also thought it was important to serve as the faculty adviser for his school’s gay-straight alliance organization. She referred to his early life on a farm in the Nebraska Plains, saying their similar upbringings in middle-class families taught them the importance of “lifting people up, not knocking them down.”
Harris essentially built Walz up as a kindhearted tough guy who is eager to do good.
Harris essentially built Walz up as a kindhearted tough guy who is eager to do good.
And the contrast with the Republican ticket could not be clearer. Trump has essentially built his campaign around a puerile, hypermasculine identity that’s steeped in faux machismo, violence, crassness and indifference to the oppression of marginalized groups. It’s a schoolyard bully’s concept of what a man should be.
But Walz is schooling them thus far, showing Trump and Vance — and voters nationwide — that manhood can be more than a repressive drag on society.