11mo ago

Tim Walz is giving MAGA a master class in manhood

www.msnbc.com

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.”

159 comments

Its also proof to the dipshits we don't hate masculinity. We hate toxic masculinity. In fact, we find Tim Walz brand of masculinity refreshing and delightful
- I like my men like I like my coffee: refreshing, delightful, and able to provide a sick burn
  
  On and off-carpet
  
  I like my men like I like my coffee
  "Ground up and stored in the freezer."
  
  So Fresh and Hot!? Gotchu…
  
  drops mic, leaves room
- This right here.
  Being a man isn't about strength, or appearance, or body count, or power over others.
  It's about accountability, honesty, resilience (NOT bottling everything down), and meaningful effort.
  Yeah it might not be the most physically attractive all the time, but I see my purpose in life to make sure we all have better so that we can all do better.
  Walz joining the VP has really given me a new sense of courage I've been lacking lately, and I'm really happy to see others recognizing it to.
  
  Being a man isn't about strength
  One of the few things that I disagree with in your statement and, really, it's down to semantics. The are more types of strength than physical strength. There's strength of character, there's emotional strength, and more. But, like physical strength, all of these can be "exercised", for example contemplating ethical quandaries can strengthen one's character and ethical self-identity.
  While much more abstract, I do find "strength" in this usage part of my model of masculinity.
  Now, about this:
  Yeah it might not be the most physically attractive all the time,
  I guarantee that to someone, you absolutely are. Remember that practically noone just "sees" another human being, they perceive them. Our visual perception is NOT raw data. It is filtered by the context, real or imagined, that we associate with the person that we're looking at. It's the combination of all this in a non-straightforward manner that will impact how physically attractive someone finds us.
  but I see my purpose in life to make sure we all have better so that we can all do better.
  You know what I was saying above? Yeah. This is exactly the kind of thing will influence how you are perceived, even visually.
  Walz joining the VP has really given me a new sense of courage I've been lacking lately, and I'm really happy to see others recognizing it to.
  I'm sorry that you've been feeling less courageous lately. The world can fuck us all up from time to time. If it gets too severe, I'd definitely recommend seeing a therapist, if you are comfortable and able to do so (and aren't already).
  
  or body count
  Aww, man. Are you telling me my Cawl O Doodie K/D ratio won't impress the girls‽‽‽
  /j
  
  I see masculinity as a bit of a spectrum -- there's traits a lot of men share, but not all men necessarily have them, and women can have them too, and that doesn't make anyone lesser.
  Helping people, protecting people, being true to yourself, conducting yourself with honor. That's what I see as masculinity. I guess in some ways, it's the idealized perfect knight haha
I read somewhere else a woman who said, "Walz represents all the dads we used to have but lost to Fox News."
- God damn, that's heart wrenching.
- Maybe that can help counter the nostalgia and hate that drives Trump's demographic
Even down to a caveman level, the role of a strong man was to be the protector of the tribe/family. Using your strength to protect others is what makes a strong man.
Inflicting your insecurities on others and feeding your ego by attacking vulnerable people are the actions of a bully, not a strong man.
- Coincidently the latter are the traits of a strongman though. So remember kids, be a strong man not a strongman.
  
  I like that Spanish has the word caudillo, which approximately means strongman and is not easily confused with anything else. It's almost always applied to Latin American leaders (like Maduro) but it seems like exactly what Trump aspires to be.
  
  I thought strongman was about lifting, pulling, carrying or even throwing heavy things?
As much as I think a "would you like to have a beer with the candidates?" is a stupid way of measuring things...I wouldn't mind having a beer with these candidates.
- Especially because Trump and Vance would roofie your beer
  
  Then leave you with the bill
  
  Hey now, let's be honest. Vance would roofie the bar stool.
  
  They'd show up late, drink too much too fast, try to order off your tab, ramble about bullshit conspiracy theories and talk over you at every opportunity, act like a sleeze to the waitress and get too handsy. Then they'd want to play pool but refuses to rack, blames the cue or someone in their field of view for their bad shots but does anything to try and distract you, hits the ball off the table multiple times but tries to get constant do-overs, claims every time you hit it's a scratch and quote obscure rules, at least once they try to sneak one of their balls in the pocket when it's your turn, when they lose they just toss their cue onto the pool table or lean it against instead of putting it away, and spends the next 45 minutes constantly saying how they should have won...
- Walz says he has given up alcohol entirely after his DUI years ago. But I bet Harris is super fun once she gets into the box of wine in the fridge.
  
  Harris seems like she enjoys a reasonably priced bottle of wine that delivers on flavor and novelty. Waltz seems like he's sipped some of the world's most expensive wines but buys boxed wine to prove that you can party on a budget.
  
  Nowadays there are plenty of decent alcohol free beers, so a beer with Walz is still not off the table (pun not initially intended, but I'll own it).
- The irony is both Walz and Trump don't drink alcohol (unsure why Trump doesn't but I found it frustrating since I don't drink and want nothing on common with the guy lol). Harris and Vance probably do drink though, and Harris wins there as she is probably a giggly drunk. Vance is probably just an annoying drunk. Not mean, but perhaps more whiny about rural folks he hates and maybe a like tech bro vibe.
  Of course, that's of you that this bar literally; it obviously means "who would you rather hang out with" and to me, that means "who would you rather play Super Smash Bros Melee with after school" and the Harris/Walz camp got that beat. Plus I'm only letting Walz bring the mountain dew, last time Vance did and we all passed out-- you know how expensive it is getting upholstery cleaned? Big oof.
  
  unsure why Trump doesn’t
  I've heard that one of his brothers was an alcoholic and that turned him off of it.
  
  I wish so much I could find a comment about this on the old site. It said "Donald Trump does not drink alcohol" and every word was a link to a real photo of him with an alcoholic drink in hand. I tried searching but Google has turned to shit and the images are all Photoshop shit.
- It's not that stupid of a lens to use to evaluate candidates. But it is absolutely overused and overvalued. Sure it's a good thing knowing you can relate enough to sit down and be comfortable but it doesn't really tells us too much on it's own, and depends a lot on who says it; for example a fascist voter would probably love to site down with a fascist politician.
  
  When I was young I used to say "Don't trust a person who doesn't drink".
  Now that I'm older I'll amend it- "Don't trust a person who doesn't drink without a good reason."
Honestly, I see Walz as a strong and empathetic dad figure, and Harris as a firm but joyful mom figure for a lot of Americans who had shit parental figures growing up.
They make an excellent team.
- While Trump is the weird granddad who really went off the deep end, and Vance the creepy uncle who you don't trust leaving alone in your home with your couch.
  
  I'm pretty tolerant of other people's beliefs, but I draw the line at people who sodomize couches. /s :)
- I see Harris as that goofy kind hearted aunt. She might not connect with you all the time, but you know she means well. Walz is definitely more like the dad that Americans wish they grew up with.
  
  I don't treat politicians like family members. I'm not interested in that.
  I want boring politics. I want them to not fucking be in the news every time they sneeze. I want kids to get lunches. I want Americans to be able to live a comfortable life. I want immigrants to become Americans and conservative terrorism to get fucked.
  I don't want a cool aunt figure and I'm not interested in putting any of these politicians as a hat slogan or a flag.
  Fuck Trump and I'm voting for Harris. But don't get it twisted...
  
  this is my analysis of the running candidates right now, but Kamala is the urbanite minority runner, walz is the rural white runner. Kamala has lots of experience in urban environments and dealing with large companies and corpos, walz has a lot of experience supporting individuals and families and has many years in rural Midwestern politics.
  kamala is more visibly younger, walz is visibly older, but they're both essentially 60. Kamala picks up the votes of the younger millenials and gen z's while walz picks up the votes of the gen x and boomer populations who resonate with his values.
  Kamala should represent basically every large population center, cali, new york, probably not chicago, but they'll probably vote for her anyway, etc...
  Walz is basically courting the entire midwestern vote by being midwestern, as well as rural, more moderate/center leaning voters.
  This is quite literally the avengers team of the democratic party right now. I don't think you could have made a better team.
- Speaking of shit parents, I think it's relevant that they're the first non-boomer candidates (Biden technically isn't but he's close) since '92.
  
  Just like a millennial is any adult, boomer is now anybody who looks like they need to be in a retirement home. And Biden is absolutely it.
  Unfortunately Walz has Boomer look about him. But hopefully he's cool boomer.
  
  Generations are roughly 20 years or so. 92-24 is 32 years.
  Its pretty reasonable that over the course of that time, we would move away from the previous generations, finally into Gen X. I would expect this the last time someone from before GenX would be elected, strictly because they will all age out soon.
- As someone with a milquetiast go-along-to-get-along father and a born-again "christian " mother...yup.
'MAGA choked up, struggling with Walz's manhood'
- How's that gag order treating ya, Donnie?
- Maga chokes on Tim's manhood
- "Republicans turned off by the size of Obama's package" vibes
  
  Was this an actual headline? Hahah
- Is that a 'full throated' endorsement? Hear that's popular with the MAGA crowd.
Tim has been a great choice.
We need more good male role models. People with tender hearts and rough hands.
- and rough hands.
  What do you mean by this? It sounds borderline, if not outright, like toxic masculinity. There's nothing about the shape of your hands that has anything to do about how good of a role model you are as a dad.
  
  The idea is not actually about a man's physical hands. It's a metaphor for putting in the work. That could be volunteering, going to bat for your community, spending quality time with your kids/grandkids/family, working long hours to make sure your family has what it needs to survive, etc.
  Yes, some men do manual labor and have rough hands, but OP isn't saying that all men should do manual labor, just that they should all put in the "work" to make the world, their community, and their family's lives better.
Why is manhood even an issue?
- I'll probably regret this, but for shits and giggles, I'm going to try and give an earnest answer here.
  Let's first assume that "manhood" is a thing. That there are people in the world who define themselves by gender roles, however those manifest. It might be biology, appearance, dress, behavior, profession or any number of other ways that someone chooses to manifest a gender role.
  So if we accept that, there's a lot of ways of approaching what western society might call "manhood": machismo, aggression, breadwinning, vinyl collecting, having the best lawn in the suburbs, etc. This is where things get dicey, in my opinion. The right is full of angry men who feel slighted by a society that they feel increasingly has no place for them. In some ways they are right: men are less likely to have education past high school, less likely to have modern workforce skills and less likely to have their formerly tolerated bullshit accepted anymore. This has lead to the rise of what people often refer to as "toxic masculinity". People who lean into traits like misogyny or racism and follow leaders who make them feel tough, like they are in the driver's seat again.
  I think the appeal of Walz is that he gives at least the appearance of another path. He's a man, no question. He hunts, he fishes, he works on his pickup truck, he coached football, and he taught social studies. But he's also championed reproductive rights, LGBT causes, and even took a fairly light hand during the BLM protests in 2020 (which can be easily twisted, unfortunately). He's the kind of pro-labor and pro-rural progressive that started to get marginalized in the 2000s, was on it's death bed when the Tea Party ascended and that MAGA seemed to finally bury.
  So yes, manhood is an issue because that seems to be a major part of the ethos that is following the alt-right. But Walz is a man that a lot of men can see themselves in: men who work, love their families and who want government to support their lives, not some fantasy they wish existed. Government that does infrastructure, public safety, boring stuff that we used to not have to think about. And because he's done all those "manly" things he feels like the old fashioned man that a lot on the alt-right claim to want back, while showing them that old fashioned man is not what they think it is.
  So there it is. I admire Walz. He's not perfect, but neither am I. I hope he doesn't disappoint me.
  
  Well fucking said! Thank you!
- Because, maga manhood is racist, mysognist, hateful and toxic.
- People tend to emulate people they like and who they'd like to like them too. So there's the hateful, angry, violent manhood that flock to Trump, valuing force, violence, and any-means-necessary victory. Then there's cool manhood that has a happy family and a respectable job and treats people with human decency and kindness.
  It's the difference between the highschool football player who bullies everyone and date rapes the prom queen, and the chill football player everybody likes, had a normal girlfriend, and who sticks up for other kids.
  Which would you rather be a role model for America?
- The generations of men that raised gen x and millennial boys were often all about being a manly man. The media we watched as children and young adults was all about it. This vision of manliness was all about physical strength, lack of emotion other than anger, and pride. Physical strength isn't a bad quality, and pride can be good, but what we were taught by men in person and media was dogshit. We were the generations that called things that were lame "gay".
  So Walz, despite being a trained soldier and football coach, is not manly because he displays emotion, empathy, and humility.
  This is why it's an issue.
  
  I would add that he is not manly only according to those twisted standards. The point is he IS very obviously manly and can therefore reset the toxic standards in people and make them see manliness is compatible with compassion and emotions
- If you’re a racist and sexist, giving an appearance of strength and dominance is your core identity.
- Because women entered the workforce and can be both providers and caregivers, but in general men don't want to embrace an identity as caregiver so point the blame at women and/or the world.
I also love that the weirdest thing about him (word choice intentional) is his preferred beverage of diet Mountain Dew, which Vance also drinks instead of coffee.
- Now I've got "Diet Mountain Dew" by Lana del Rey stuck in my head.
- This is so bizarre.
  Mountain Dew instead of coffee is just... IDK.
  
  Yeah coffee is almost zero calorie and it can be really good. Mountain Dew ain't great and diet dew is fucking gross.
Looking forward to the Republican who badmouths Walz for being a football coach, only to be reminded of Tommy Tuberville.
- so far the worst they've had to say is that he's left leaning. Oh no, he likes queer people having rights, what ever will we do.
  I think every other significant dig has turned into a meme almost immediately so it's not working very well.
  
  They're also trying to claim he's a coward for not serving in the military long enough. 24 years is apparently a short timeframe in the eyes of a republican
  
  Over on r conservative they've got nothing to say about his actual policies. I'm just surprised the guy mentioning the horse thing got downvoted
- Fuck Petey Potatotown. And unfortunately the GOP isn't concerned about being hypocritical.
- When Walz is presiding over the Senate, the should start calling him coach.
Dad energy
deep inhale “Doooooooodge…… Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaall”
youtu.be/bYz7-BRMbq0
AIPAC sponsored drunk driving genocide enthusiasts are liberals’ idea of positive masculinity?
This explains a lot.
- You're acting weird
- You're right. I better vote for Trump I guess.
- Man, these trolls sure are funny this election season.
- You gave it your best shot
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.
Manhood is when you serve in the military and play football. Really open and progressive ideas here.
- You’re missing the point. He did those things and isn’t a complete and utter tool as a result. They aren’t his identity or opportunities to “be manly.” They were acts of service.
  Think of it this way: if someone wanted you to meet their 60 year white American man friend who served 2 decades in the military and coached high school football, would your immediate assumption be you’re about to meet someone like Walz? Most of us have a lot of bad assumptions about that person out the gate before meeting them.
  Then it turns out they actually have a pretty progressive record as a governor. Look at his record, not the stereotypes of where he came from. That’s the point.
  
  You’re missing the point. He did those things and isn’t a complete and utter tool as a result. They aren’t his identity or opportunities to “be manly.” They were acts of service.
  I think the most egregious examples of "toxic masculinity" are the men who think that since they're so Alpha, the world owes them everything on their own terms. Like the President who us so upset that the hurricane went the other way that he has to "prove" he was right all along. Or the Senator who prefers to be called "Coach" because he likes to think of himself as the Big Man On Campus, and not 1 of 100 equals. Or even the incel living in his parents' basement who is so bitter about not having a girlfriend because he can't understand that girls are humans too and don't exist just to please him.
  Walz is refreshing because it's clear that he went into Politics to make a difference, not to make a profit. We've been conditioned to think all politicians are greedy assholes, probably by the politicians who prefer it that way because it lets them get away with shit. Then this guy comes along, with genuine integrity, and it threatens to collapse it all.
  Republicans have built a political movement out of the belief that all government is bloated and ineffectual. If Democrats start electing people who can show that Government can be a net benefit to ordinary people, it kills 50+ years of Republican messaging.
  
  You’re missing the point. He did those things and isn’t a complete and utter tool as a result. They aren’t his identity or opportunities to “be manly.” They were acts of service.
  You're missing the underlying assumption, which is that military and football are for men. They're "typical man things" and Walz is showing that a man doing manly things doesn't have to be an asshole.
  But that still assumes there are manly things, that armed service and football are manly. Subtext.
- He served in the military and then dipped out before the Iraq War started. Vance thinks it gives him points to have gone to Iraq when Walz hasn't. It doesn't. Vance participated in an illegal, immoral invasion. Walz was smart enough to GTFO.
- Can't finish a single sentence?

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