How do we feel about the VP pick?

I’ve been Walz pilled

This is newsletter is 100% reader-supported. If you enjoy my writing or want to support my work, please consider upgrading. It’s about the cost of one coffee per month.

“I know basic gun safety isn’t a threat to my rights. It’s about keeping our kids safe, I had an A rating from the NRA. Now I get straight F’s. And I sleep just fine.” - Tim Walz

---

The vibes are high and they will keep going.  Tim Walz is a likable dude who knows how to govern for the people and ALSO how to communicate. 

Yeah, I have been Walz-pilled. I’m into him and here is why.

He can run a campaign.

In 2006 Walz flipped a Republican Congressional seat in a rural part of Minnesota. He won that seat 6 times and was elected Governor twice.  He knows how to run a campaign and how to win.  This is no small thing. 

He’s a grownup.

He’s tried and tested: the thing about JD Vance is that man has barely won a single race for public office and has served 18 months in the senate. He won his primary with a little over 30% of the vote, not even Republicans resoundingly wanted him.  The inability to convey charisma on a national stage you see from him today? Yea, that’s because campaigning is not that easy and Yale Law School doesn’t teach it. 

Walz’s first career was as a member of the Army National Guard and as a social studies teacher and football coach. JD Vance’s story of growing up in rural poverty is one of getting out and writing a book shitting on everyone who stayed behind.  Walz on the other hand has stayed a part of his community, fought for them, worked with them, grown with them and has actually gotten shit done for them. He lost his father to lung cancer at age 19. The last week of his dad's life cost his mom a decade of work to pay off the hospital debt. As governor he signed legislation to ensure that people with medical debt can still get healthcare, to prevent debt from transfering to a spouse (like his mom) and more. 

He gives a shit about real gun control

Walz is a hunter and used to have an A rating from the NRA but now he believes in gun reform. You may gawk for a minute but seriously- this is great. It means he can speak directly to people about why he changed his mind and how they should too. He charts his evolution to the 2018 Parkland High School shooting and, in particular, the urging of this then-17-year-old daughter.  During his race for governor that year, Walz donated all the money he had ever taken from the NRA to charity and publicly pushed for background checks and eliminating reciprocal-carry agreements between states.

He can talk through the Culture Wars

In 1999 while a teacher in rural Minnesota, he helped start a gay straight alliance club. I’m excited because I think what Walz is able to do is articulate a very Minnesota version of Democratic values which largely centers around minding your own goddamn business.

 Walz is going to lead democrats into ways to talk about how focusing on other people’s genitals, on monitoring who other adults have sex with, and obsessing over other people’s lives is really weird. 

He actually has a point of view from a place of values (unlike JD!).  

He gets shit done

As Governor, Tim Walz has actually enacted policies to make lives better:

• Universal school meals

• Legalized adult-use cannabis & expunged nonviolent cannabis convictions

• LGBTQ protections

• Improved labor protections, paid sick leave, banned non competes

• 100% clean energy by 2040, banned PFAS

• Protected reproductive rights and gender affirming care

• Banned Conversion therapy

• Ended ideological book bans 

• $1B for housing

• Gun Safety, red flag laws, expanding background checks 

• Cut child poverty by ⅓

• Made insulin and prescription drugs more affordable

• Invested in public education

• Free college for families with an income under $80k

• Investmenting $1B for child care and early learning

• Signed historic elder abuse legislation

I’m excited about bringing Minnesota nice to the ticket - are you?