The Harris-Waltz pairing stirred strong emotions among some Democrats.
Most of it is about parents, or the politicians they want to elect as surrogate moms and dads.
As soon as Tim Walz was selected as Kamala Harris’ running mate, social media users were in a frenzy. It casts a Carhartt- and camo-wearing progressive as its fictional father.
“Tim Waltz is the dad an entire generation wanted to replace the one Fox News took from them,” said a tweet posted by X-user coketweet that went viral.
The Minnesota governor is considered by many to be the perfect parent figure for Harris, who Drew Barrymore begged in April to “embrace the country.”
“I always think in my heart that we all need moms,” Barrymore told Harris on the talk show, “but in our country, we need our national moms.”
What may have been dismissed then as Barrymore’s own well-known mommy issues is now the overwhelmingly dominant sentiment of the left, whose mission is to get America to choose a “Mommy and Dad” who will embrace and soothe them.
A friendly pro-Democrat pair He urges them to live better, more virtuous lives, and even sneaks them a beer if they’re good.
Liz Whitmer Gerety, sister of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer I wrote to X“So it’s going to be a battle between Democrats who have that no-nonsense, cool parent vibe that’s going to pick you up in the middle of the night and take you home safely, and the people they were warning you about.”
Since when have we become so childishly submissive? We should be electing leaders who can stare down foreign dictators, solve border crises, ease inflation, and make 15 tough decisions a day. We should not be acknowledging our feelings.
This world of necessity and imagined intimacy exposes a deep delusion in our unhealthy political culture: Elected officials are complete strangers, not your family, and your family is far more important than a narcissist with a government pension.
But many new Waltz fans are creating fan fiction about their ideal father.
TikTok influencer Pamela Wurst Vettrini went viral for a video in which she said of Waltz, “He represents the fathers that so many liberal women lost. So many of us had educated, decent fathers who were moderate to conservative, and we lost them to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. We lost them to Donald Trump and the cult of conservatism.”
meanwhile Romance novelist Emily Russ In her own seven-minute reel, she talks about the emotions that Waltz evokes in her.
Through tears, she said her father was a former fighter pilot with a chemistry degree from the Air Force Academy, but “he denounces climate change and fundamentals of medicine. He’s a very smart man. I can see what politics has done to him.”
In my day, girls with troubled relationships with their fathers became strippers; now they’re insufferable progressive influences.
Instead of bashing your dad online, maybe you should give him a call.
I understand that many people substitute religion for politics and practice it fervently, but imagine your father, alive and well on this planet right now, belittling you over politics. Life is too short and family is too precious. These fathers may be hard, but I’m sure these women, the staunch ideologues, are hard too.
Your relationship with your parents wasn’t built on cable news, so why let it end there? And it’s not going to be repaired by Waltz becoming vice president.
Many in the media are gleeful about this Waltz “dad” fest: The Washington Post breathlessly tweeted about a $40 camo hat sold by the Harris/Waltz campaign, calling it “a parody of the Minnesota governor’s trademark Midwestern dad fashion with aplomb that’s just as MAGA-worthy.”
on the other hand, Salon Story Declaration“Tim Waltz’s usual fatherly energy is upsetting MAGA.”
But it’s mostly confused people on the left who have familial illusions about Harris and Waltz.
Sure, leaders and candidates may have the maternal or paternal traits that endear us to them. But forming this kind of parental attachment is creepy. It’s infantilizing and reeks of a desire for authoritarianism. These leaders, after all, work for you, the taxpayers. Personally, I have no desire to have a politician, whether right or left, as a parent.
But maybe some Democrats just want to recreate their childhoods when their parents paid for everything, but this time with government money.
After all, as Waltz said on a recent “White Guys for Harris” Zoom call, “one man’s socialism is another man’s neighborliness.”
