Tim Walz‘s first official speech on the Democratic ticket showed all the reasons Kamala Harris was praised for choosing the Minnesota governor as her running mate. Personally, I think one of them outshines all the others.
Walz’s military background and work as a high school teacher and football coach, along with his palpable joy and open expressions of compassion for those in need, offer America a vision of what masculinity can look like – he is a “joyful warrior” who offers a vision that contrasts with that offered by Donald Trump‘s bravado-driven campaign.
And he’s clearly willing to challenge Team Trump on that front. He showed as much even before he got the call to join Harris’ campaign, by publicly referring to Trump and his allies as “bullies” who are really weak at heart and mocking the GOP slate for “running for the He-Man Women Haters Club or something.”
In his speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Walz showed that he’s willing to go all out with J.D. Vance in a vice presidential debate, saying he’s looking forward to the event happening — “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 was circulating on social media, was confirmation for me: This is a man willing and ready to challenge toxic MAGA masculinity.
I don’t think I’m alone in believing that. I see social media posts praising Walz for embodying a more refreshing and humane idea of masculinity than anything conservatives offer. And Harris seems to get that, too.
In her speech introducing Walz to voters, Harris took her time laying out his “tough guy” bona fides but cleverly explained how they gave him a compassionate perspective. She noted that Walz is an elite marksman who served 24 years in the Army National Guard before explaining that he supports gun safety laws. She delved into his success as a high school teacher and championship-winning football coach — she referred to him as “Coach Walz” several times — before explaining that he also found it important to serve as a faculty advisor to his school’s gay-straight alliance organization. She referenced his early life on a farm in the Nebraska Plains, saying that their similar upbringings in middle-class families taught them the importance of “lifting people up, not tearing them down.”
Harris portrays Walz as a friendly, tough guy who wants to do the right thing.
And the contrast with the Republican ticket couldn’t be more stark. Trump has essentially built his campaign around a childish, hypermasculine identity steeped in faux-macho behavior, violence, rudeness, 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 so far, showing Trump and Vance—and voters across the country—that masculinity can be more than a repressive drag on society.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
