Tim Walz, the Right White Guy
Issue #696 The Choice, Thursday, August 8, 2024
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Once Kamala Harris announced her choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate for the role of Vice President this week, most of the news that I saw focused on what a great choice most Democrats thought this was, and that even intra-party opposites like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin found common ground when it came to this inspired choice.
It is a good thing whenever Democrats can find a way not to devour one another and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Indeed, there was a lot of comment about how clever Walz is (he’s the one who tarred and feathered the Republicans as just plain ‘weird’), how progressive he is (full-on actively supportive of LGBTQ rights and a woman’s right to have control over her own body), and how midwestern he is (Walz is a proud gun owner who loves to hunt but is also strongly supportive of stricter gun laws).
What I didn’t see discussed quite as much – if at all – was how white he is, and why Vice President Harris chose to go with such a straight white male from the Midwest.
I can understand why some may want to shy away from this point of inquiry, but since I admittedly see race in everything just about as much as little Haley Osment saw dead people in The Sixth Sense, I figure why change my brand now? Plus I think it’s kinda important.
Because here’s why; Kamala didn’t have a choice. But before I go any further with that, let me emphasize that I am fully supportive of Walz, OK? He will be great. But Kamala remembers one of the most painful lessons of the Obama presidency, namely that this country has not nearly overcome. This country was founded and built upon the foundation of racial discrimination (the economic super engine that was slavery, the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans), and those roots are not dead just yet.
Remember that one brief, shining moment when many of us thought that Obama’s election was America’s turning point, that Americans as a whole were finally willing to judge a man based on his character and not the color of his skin? Instead, what we learned was that Obama’s election woke the beasts from our past/present and gave us a white nationalist president who rode to power on the crest of a Unite The White Right wave of rage and grievance hell-bent on destroying America before allowing something like that to ever happen again.
What Kamala also knew is that a big part of Biden’s appeal across all Democratic lines that won him the presidency in 2020 – and defeated Trump - was that he was a straight white male, just like all the other straight white males that had come before him. But he was a white male who couldn’t get elected without Black electoral power. So once South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn solved that problem by throwing his weight – and the weight of the Black vote – behind him, then Democrats had what they needed to go against Trump at that time; namely, another seemingly moderate white man who didn’t make white folks nervous, but who also had the backing of Black folks.
Oh, and who did Trump beat in 2016? Hillary Clinton. A woman.
So Kamala knew that the only way to ensure that this insane momentum generated by her candidacy stayed on track was not to derail it by throwing a curveball VP selection like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who would have been a phenomenal VP if America was as it should be. But no way is this country ready for a Black woman president, married to a white Jewish man, with an openly gay and married vice president. Same thing if she had chosen anyone Black, Hispanic, Asian, or female. If she had chosen anyone but a straight white male.
Don’t push it. Don’t ruin it. Too much is at stake.
We got this. For now.
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Keith, you are exactly right. I hope with all my heart that our country will grow up one day and rid itself of racial discrimination.