tim walz appears to be an excellent choice

[solarbird]

“We got 91 days. My god, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.“

— Tim Walz

…amongst other things said, of course. Particularly “These guys are creepy and weird” and “Mind your own damn business.” They don’t sound like much in isolation, but in context? It’s working.

Today’s a travel workday for me, so this may be the only post you get. But if you get a chance, listen to Walz’s full speech.

I think the key element is that he wants to beat the shit out of these fascists on the campaign trail, and most importantly, he’s going to enjoy doing it. It’s going to be fun.

Give the speech a listen. I think you’ll like it.

89 days remain.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[canyonwalker]

The thing that struck me immediately in looking at how Walz engages in politics is, This guy gets it.

I've been frustrated for several years that the Democratic Party has been stuck with old-fashioned leadership. Yes, the leaders are old people, but this isn't a criticism about age, per se. It's that they campaign like it's still 1991. Long before the dominance of social media. Years before the popularity of serial liars and propaganda TV and radio entering the mainstream. Even before the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle. They think they can stay above the fray by not engaging it and relying on the news media to present a fair picture of reality. Well, the reality is manifestly clear that the news media can't/won't do that.

Perhaps the difference with Walz, who's no spring chicken at age 60 BTW, is that he's a relative newcomer to politics. Unlike current and recent Democratic leaders who've been in politics since well before 1991— and thus got their chops in a completely bygone era— Walz has been in politics for about 10 years. He's developed all his skills in the current reality. He gets it that to win against opponents who broadcast false and hateful positions morning, noon, and night every day, he's got to engage daily. The media's not going to just "do their job" as understood in the 20th century. They quit that job years ago.

[solarbird]

That's part of the boomers-only-talking-to-themselves problem I've been talking about for ages. While he's technically a baby boomer, they don't consider him one (speaking as always in very large group terms) so he's had to work outside that.

So, you get modern awareness of the world. And it's fucking great.

[canyonwalker]

Just like I stress that it's not specifically an age thing, it's also not specifically a Boomer thing. It's the challenge that people of every generation tend to develop and harden their mental model of how the world works when they're younger and then struggle (or outright refuse) to adapt when seismic changes in reality render that model unrealistic. Trump is the best example of how this isn't precisely an age/Boomer thing. He's 78, at the old end of the Boomer range, and he is an absolute master at the modern media landscape. Yes, many of his ideas are regressive to 40-50-60 years ago, but his political communication skills are modern.

[solarbird]

Sure, it's not specifically their age. It's just the outsized size of their cadre, they didn't have to talk to people outside their own, so they didn't.

In Seattle, where they not only aren't outsized but are in fact out-numbered, they're so much more reasonable it isn't even funny. They'd've been... well, maybe not fine fine, because raised by survivors of the Great Depression and World War II, but within normal ranges of fine... if their cadre had been of normal scale. And none of that is their fault.

[arethinn]

Did you get a load of this one?

[solarbird]

...I do not get it.

Except I think it's a Minnesota thing. Partly from context but partially something in the back of my head saying it's a Minnesota thing.

[arethinn]

It's a little interjection that means something like "sorry" or "oops", and commonly thought of as characteristic in Upper Midwest English (certainly I thought so), although maybe it's not as unique to the area as people think. He said it recently in that rally in Detroit where someone in the audience passed out and he called for a medic. https://youtu.be/oIKCSa39lRU?t=66 I thought you might have seen this Obama poster parody since dduane posted it.