The Midwestern Dad We Didn't Know We Needed
He just forwarded you a coupon for 25% off winter tires
Dames Nation, you know that we here at Two Bossy Dames simply love healthy, gentle masculinity. Mister Rogers, skate legend Rodney Mullen, you name one, we most likely admire him. Imagine our delight when a new king of kindness crossed our radar.
Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor and America’s Favorite Kindly Uncle Tim Walz as her pick for Vice President this week, yay! As we did when Jance Dance Vance was named the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, we’re going to provide a fun little round-up of topical & timely content created by an Internet and electorate responding giddily.
The Dad / Uncle content had already been flowing freely since Walz’s vibe-shifting appearance on Morning Joe a couple of weeks ago. You know the one, the moment when “weird” became a thing.
First-rate messaging, delivered capably by a guy from whom it sounds believable?! We were already high on the positivity and relief unleashed when President Biden announced that he was stepping down from his candidacy, making room for VP Harris to take the lead. Were the Dems suddenly…in array? Seems like it, and I intend to relish it for as long as it lasts!
The contrast between Coach Walz (as Harris introduced him at their roll-out rally in Philly this week) and ol’ Jance Dance the jokingly alleged couchophile couldn’t be more stark. Walz is over here unleashing wave after wave of warm-hearted, patient competence – what one Twitter user so perfectly captured as Tonic Masculinity.
Examples of tonic masculinity are everywhere: a photo of Tim holding a piglet at an agricultural fair; a little video of him at the MN State Fair with his daughter, Hope, playfully arguing about whether or not turkey is a type of meat (he says no, that it’s “special”, which I think is just Lutheran for pareve) and then hopping on her favorite roller coaster; some Facebook photos about making sure Hope had a sweet stereo set up in her dorm room.
Following Tuesday morning’s announcement, we got carburetor content; ope! He’s just gonna scootch past ya there content; his prize-winning hotdish recipe, his love of Dad Rock (← gift link!). A living manifestation of Dad Magazine (of blessed memory and evergreen wholesome humor) is on the national stage!
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(Above, Governor Walz at an event honoring fellow great son of Minnesota Prince Rogers Nelson, wearing the appropriate color)
Tim is a former teacher, married to a fellow former teacher (the exceptional Gwen Walz, whose own political issue is quite substantive: education for prison inmates), and of course there’s tons of solid “whew, teaching sure does age you!” material to enjoy, but there’s some really substantive stuff in his record that I want to highlight, too. Passing a law guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch to Minnesota schoolchildren; developing and teaching a very sophisticated unit on genocide*** and the conditions that lead to it (first written up in the NYTimes in 2008 and revisited this week); volunteering to be the faculty adviser for his high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance; restoring sacred lands to the Upper Sioux Community (Pezihutazizi Oyate). I love this getting on with the job and doing the right thing for its own sake approach.
Walz’s hyper-effective campaign style ranges from being folksily ferocious on the stump to charmingly earnest in interviews. He’s also gotten the thumbs-up from Twitter’s menswear critic-and-scholar-in-chief, Derek Guy. If you’re into the semiotics of clothes, his piece in Politico is worth a read!
***I’m hopeful that those of us who want to see a swift, decisive end to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people will succeed in appealing to this very understanding of genocide to help make a ceasefire and recovery/reparations a priority for the Harris/Walz ticket & administration.
Best Uncle Tim ever.