Tim Walz’s Secret Weapon Is Intersectionality
The Democratic vice-presidential nominee is popular for a reason...or reasons
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The 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), has been governor since 2019, or almost as long as former Pres. Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) have served in any kind of government role, combined.
Before serving as governor, Walz was in Congress for a dozen years. Including serving as ranking member of the Veteran Affairs Committee and member of the Agriculture and Armed Services committees.
In other words, his experience is intersectional: State and federal. Chief executive and legislator. Swords and ploughshares.
But that’s not the intersectionality I’m talking about.
Walz did not run for office in Minnesota as a member of the Democratic Party. Because Minnesota doesn’t have one. Technically speaking, anyway. Officially, Minnesota is one of two states (the other’s North Dakota) where the not-Republican party goes by a different name.
In Minnesota it’s the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, affiliated with Democrats and formed in the 1940s by a merger of the state Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party. It’s both literally and titularly an intersectional party. As of 2022, it’s now the state’s dominant party.
The DFL has used its newfound power to help people. Farmers. Laborers. Everybody.
Yes, identity stuff. Protecting gender-affirming care. Civil rights. And reproductive rights. Legalizing recreational weed.
Also paid sick leave. Public transit. Helping anyone helps everyone, but this is stuff that obviously helps everyone. Stuff that is wildly popular.
But even that’s not the intersectionality I’m talking about.
Walz was born in Nebraska. And taught for a year in China. He’s a military veteran. And taught high school. And coached football. In Mankato, known to older TV viewers as literally the big city where Pa Ingalls would take the wagon for supplies in Little House on the Prairie. (Guarantee you someone reading this just got a lump in their throat.)
That’s tons of intersectionality, but we’re all intersectional in some way. And others. But Walz’s teaching is the secret weapon I’m talking about. Because what he taught was social studies. In fact, Walz got his degree in social science.
Social studies is intersectionality. I had to look it up a few days ago, but Social Studies was basically invented by the U.S. government a century or so ago to embrace a batch of academic disciplines outside the three Rs.
History. Civics. Geography.
The intersection of intangible forces that tangibly shape human existence.
Too many people don’t recognize the array of intersecting dynamics that create the lives that too many people think of as having nothing to do with politics. Everything is politics. Politics is intersectionality. Of history. Civics. Geography. And more.
Republicans want to ban history. Walz studied it and taught it and saw its connection to present and future.
Who knows whether social studies led Walz to champion policies that not only help believe but are beloved by people. Who knows whether social studies made Walz a politician.
But in a 2006 profile by the Omaha World-Herald, Walz explained what piqued his interest in politics just two years before.
It was the height of the 2004 presidential campaign. Pres. George W. Bush was riding high on patriotic war fervor, despite his failure to protect America three years before, despite the obvious-even-then fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Challenging Bush was Sen. John Kerry, decorated combat veteran of another illegitimate war. Republicans mocked Kerry’s Purple Hearts by wearing bandages at their 2004 convention, more than a decade before Trump mocked Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) military service.
During the campaign, Walz took a couple of students to a Bush rally. They were denied entry. One of the students had a Kerry sticker on his wallet.
So Walz volunteered for Kerry. And began his own political career. So far, Walz has been remarkably free of unearthed dirt or resurrected political peccadilloes, unlike Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. That may, of course, change.
But we do know Walz’s origin story. What compelled him to take the first step from a years-long teaching career to enter a field muddied with decades of dirt by too much of the media and too many people.
By people who’ve forgotten what life was like when millions of people had pictures on their walls of Kennedy or Roosevelt. Who loved them.
Walz’s turning point was a tiny injustice. A trivial but real denial of the right to civic participation. In that moment, fear of difference and commitment to conformity sired the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential candidate.
A tiny incident at the intersection of history and civics and the politics of the moment. The birth of a politician who makes people feel good about politicians and politics.
Jonathan Larsen is a veteran journalist and TV news producer who’s worked at MSNBC, CNN, ABCNews, and TYT. You can support his independent reporting with a paid subscription to his occasionally obnoxious newsletter, or by making a one-time donation.
He also spent 24 years in the Army National Guard, retiring as a Master Sergeant.
Tim Walz walks the talk.
Wow, what a well written piece on Walz’s backstory.