Tim Walz is ideally suited to expand Kamala Harris’ appeal across the ideological spectrum.
  • Nougat@fedia.io
    2203·
    3 months ago

    Headline suggests that the Democrats - who are currently more united than they’ve been since probably Kennedy - aren’t united.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
        501·
        3 months ago

        Not at all.

        I think they should be all thrown into an island with rudimentary weapons and no clothes to fight it out via a hunger games type atmosphere.

        The winner gets trebucheted into the grand canyon.

          • Nougat@fedia.io
            81·
            3 months ago

            Gluttony Games? Wait, that’s just what is happening already.

        • rustydomino@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          3 months ago

          I read your comment after the person you were replying to had deleted their comment. So I don’t even know what you’re talking about. But imma upvote you anyway because your comment is still awesome.

      • Bocky@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 months ago

        Might encourage a few of them to donate a little more. Actually no, they will just create a new business entity and funnel the funds there under another name

    • fukhueson@lemmy.worldOP
      724·
      3 months ago

      I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.

      Walz’s elevation earns the left a big victory. Yet because Walz himself isn’t of the left, the pick seems intended to serve a unifying purpose: a candidate who appeals to all different stripes of Democrats for different reasons. The fact that Democrats across the political spectrum seem thrilled by the pick — with effusive support coming from people ranging from Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — seems to validate the theory.

      It’s important to be clear: The VP selection matters way less for elections than people think. It’s much more important to select a potential president than an optimal running mate.

      But you can see why Harris sees picking Walz as smart politics. It allows her to simultaneously hand the left a win without necessarily tacking left — potentially keeping her coalition united even as she works to win over the general election’s decisive centrists.

      I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.

      Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
    38·
    3 months ago

    He can defiantly crush Vance and speak to the Midwest. I think that is what matters.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        While still being a genuinely good person.

        Also, he isn’t shy about cutting through the bullshit to the issues. Like this clip. “Oh what a monster!”…

  • psmgx@lemmy.world
    322·
    3 months ago

    Dude got nominated like an hour ago. How are they putting out articles like this?

    Like the average person ain’t even got home from work on the east coast.

  • bazus1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    241·
    3 months ago

    Donald Trump is ideally suited to expand Kamala Harris’ appeal across the ideological spectrum.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    201·
    3 months ago

    Yep.

    Harris has an edge to her, she’s quick-smart (imo this is good for presidential material) and that may be off putting to some (because women aren’t supposed to be like that , right?), however, Walz is straight up good guy and he can balance out the ticket as far as presentation.

    My only concern about Walz is that he presents so strongly as a good guy/dad figure that, should Harris be elected, the typical behavior is to put the VP up for election upon the incumbent’s term(s) expiring. Does he have the presence to be the potential presidential candidate in the future?

    • Xanis@lemmy.world
      11·
      3 months ago

      Well now that depends: Would being in the VP chair help mould him into someone who can rise to the challenge?

      Who knows!

      For now let’s not worry about that. Seriously. Trump bad. Beat first. Big unga bunga, big stick, big smack. Don’t let go of that question, just file it away for a bit.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      3 months ago

      Why is that even a concern? Frankly, they should be pushing for legislation that disqualifies senior citizens anyway and he’ll be almost 70 when his turn comes around. Just retire, guys. You’ve earned it.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 months ago

        It’s a concern because that’s how things generally work.

        Sure, you can wish we don’t have ancient, out of touch older people running for office, but you’ll have just as much success with that by banging your head on the keyboard. So you should be concerned until things turn out otherwise.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      People really do think that quick-smart is not a good thing in women???!

      If so, I bet it’s just the ones who take it really badly when they’re outsmarted.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        What samus12345 said, and people don’t like a woman who behaves the same way a man would in a professional environment - and I mean someone who is demanding, disciplines, is decisive, and holds people to expectations. A good boss does those things, tempered with understanding and leeway as needed. People expect women to hide all that behind some sort of female softness, or they call her a hard-nosed bitch or worse and they don’t respect her the way they would a male in the same position.

    • Hikermick@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      I like to think there will be a time in the near future when Americans will want there president to be laid back and somewhat boring

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        We should be so luck to ever see a time where the president doesn’t need to make a hard decision. Don’t think that’ll ever happen.

  • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world
    18·
    3 months ago

    They forgot quotes; by “left” and “progressive” they mean republican-lites.

    The left’s romance with Walz is deeply entwined with hostility to his chief rival for a spot on the ticket: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Harris’s decision on Shapiro, who has a history of hostility with the party’s pro-Palestinian faction, had become seen as a bellwether for whether she’d be meaningfully different from Biden on Gaza. Walz looked like the most progressive available anti-Shapiro, and so emerged as the left’s preferred alternative.

    The Minnesota Miracle reforms, enacted in a single legislative session, read like a progressive wishlist. They include paid family leave, free school meals, marijuana legalization, a 100 percent clean energy mandate by 2040, and a slew of protections for organized labor.

    But I use the word “progressive” and not its cousin “leftist” deliberately. The Minnesota Miracle policies are all squarely within the Democratic mainstream: none betray an ideological commitment to the party’s socialist or otherwise radical wings.

    But Walz’s position on Israel-Palestine is hardly left-wing. The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg has put together a list of Walz’s positions and actions that basically reflect the traditional pro-Israel consensus. Walz’s position on how to end the current Gaza war is virtually identical to Shapiro’s. The most important difference is less Middle East policy than domestic: Shapiro has been far harsher on pro-Palestine campus protests than Walz has.

    The strongest Trump attack on Harris, at least to date, is that she’s too far to the left. Scored by one (dubious) metric as the most liberal member of the Senate in 2019, she has drawn Republican flak for previous positions ranging from Medicare-for-all to banning fracking to decriminalizing border crossing.

    Moreover, his celebrity status on the left gives Harris crucial running room to keep up the strategic centrism. By handing her left flank a victory, she’s theoretically built major credibility that she can spend to defray a left-wing revolt over some of her more centrist stances.