Republicans struggle to find an effective line of attack against Gov. Tim Walz, who was picked as Kamala Harris' running mate.
The GOP is scrambling to find a line of attack against Kamala Harris's VP pick — and it's not going well
Tim Walz has made his debut as Kamala Harris’ running mate, and Republicans are struggling to apply their standard villainization playbook to the Minnesota governor.
Walz has been making waves for weeks now as a good-natured, relatable politician with a particular aptitude for dressing down the Republican agenda in terms that any voter can understand — and the GOP hates it.
Republicans are scrambling to paint the governor-turned-VP candidate as a devilish Marxist hellbent on running the country into the ground — their usual stuff — while leveling a bunch of other really weird attacks. Here are some of their most pathetic attempts to turn voters against Walz.
Bet they wanted a Shapiro VP pick so bad. It would've been antisemitic space laser conspiracy theory bullshit 24/7 until the vote. Now all they've got is "how dare this man ensure school children have full bellies and necessary sanitary supplies every day."
as it turns out, the strategy of "lets force everyone to have more babies, and then when kids go hungry, blame the parents specifically for having too many babies" isn't panning out the way they hoped
Conservatives don't give a shit about what's actually getting criticized – if they're told that they need to think Walz is bad, then anything he does can be used as an example of him being a "villain". Could be fucking "he donates to charity" and they'd find a way to doublethink that into being a bad thing
True, but if only the deep maga cultists are buying your attacks, then it is not changing the election result
The goal of the attacks is either to motivate some kind-of-conservative that doesn’t care that much about the election and might not vote to vote; or to demoralize a democrat voter into not voting
In this case, it's not landing because they were already being called weird for similar behavior, and that is landing. It's easy to dismiss the entire attack with a deadpan "that's a weird thing to say".
Holy shit. They're struggling to find stuff so they default to "he put tampons in schools", "let Minneapolis burn to the ground" (which it didn't, I lived downtown during the protests) or "rocks and cows" quote.
Yeah, that was weird how they kept on telling me the city had burned down and shit when I could turn my head 90° and see the skyline same as it ever was, nary a cloud or indeed plume of smoke in the sky
Well yeah. I mean look at this man. Free breakfast AND lunch. Sounds like the devil's work to me. You have to be a good Christian like Sarah Huckabee and remove child labor laws.
I love the contrast this is painting between the far-left and far-right. On the one hand, you got fascists carrying tiki torches and chanting "jews will not replace us," and on the other you got people saying "let's make sure no children are starving." And talking heads on Fox are super pissed about the latter.
To be clear neither Harris or Walz are “far left”…
Policies that were considered centrist compromise planks back in the 70s and 80s are now "Fringe Leftist Views" in the modern media, because so much of our information is owned and manufactured by right wing extremists.
As far as I understand, far left is anti-capitalism (communism), and/or anti-authority (anarchism), and/or maybe more recently radical ecologists who are ready to destroy property.
I don't like the whole "down to earth politician I could get a beer with" thing, but I legitimately don't think I can picture trump or vance looking happy with a farm animal, and I think that says something about them as peoplecin a way that's different than just "down to earth".
You should look like that if you're at a fair and someone hands you a piglet. It's just a funny, cute thing that's supposed to make people happy.
You see, Republicans saying that exact thing would've been smart. It's both true (as an acronym for his rank), but also dangerously close to "CSAM" that idiots would be up in arms about the guy being a predator.
Still would be an incredibly scummy thing to do to attack opponents, but that might have actually achieved something for those amoral fuckwits.
Watched a video of him explaining how to fix a headlight connector and immediately know he is my man. Dude didn't need to explain to the world how to do it. He wanted to help us, in his own little way.
I don't think they'll struggle to attack him, it's just a question of whether it will stick and how much it will matter since he's only the VP pick. In some ways it's useful because it distracted them from Harris.
The attacks seem pretty obvious: he's a pedophile, he eats babies, Minneapolis burned under his watch, he retired from the national guard to avoid combat, he supported LGBTQ groups in high schools, he lived in China, he facilitated sending children to China, say China a lot, say Marxist a lot, say communist a lot, highlight Bernie and Hillary's support of him, etc.
Remember, they only need to villainize him to people that already think he's a villain, so nothing needs to be true or especially devastating. It's like the Fox cut-down that people responded to by being like "the reasons Fox says he's bad are all the reasons I like him!"
It's like, well, yes. Fox isn't trying to convince you. They're trying to make sure republican voters don't stay home.
Edit: oh, and tampons, I forgot they were attacking him about tampons.
This doesn't make sense to me. They need to villainize him for those low info voters on the fence of voting. Most Republicans are voting for Trump, not against Kamala.
Their problem is they want to energize their base to vote while not encouraging a wider turnout. That's the point of attacks, not to change opinions. Unfortunately for them, their attacks end up energizing their opponents base because they're so fucking stupid or actually pointing out things the opponents base wants.
"Kamala picks the vp endorsed by Sanders. This Democratic ticket is a horrible vehicle for progressive change that we must stop." That's the sort of attack that actually helps your opponent. If they let Kamala's campaign paint them as both radical and not looking for real change, they're cooked. And so far that's what they're doing.
If Jesus were her running mate they'd find some way to double down on 'Democrats bad' by making a new hyper Christianity that's even more theocratic and fascist.
Also Republicans: screaming themselves hoarse about an Algerian woman boxer.
The weird get weirder and I'm loving this VP pick. What a 180 from just a few weeks ago, when a lot of us thought the Democrats were just going to march into a very likely loss with Biden as the nominee...most people now laugh when JD is the topic and a couch reference is made and the Republicans are proving themselves to a bunch of creepy weirdos on the daily.
NPR broke the news about the Walz endorsement this morning by interviewing a bunch of Republicans from his original House district.
Everyone in the DC news circuit was furiously insisting that Shapiro had to be the guy and Harris didn't listen. So now expect this guy to get absolutely dragged in the press for the next three months.
Just had a conversation with someone about it… apparently he thinks that the reason she went with walz over Shapiro is that Shapiro tried to negotiate roles/responsibilities where Walz was like “what can I do?”
Don’t know if that’s just a rumor or fairly accurate, so don’t quote me on that.
In the paper world that is the DC circuit, Shapiro might have been the “smart” choice of political wonks.
In the real where people actually live… Walz makes more sense.
Really, the thing is that Shapiro might have helped deliver PA, where the effect Walz is having is immediate and obvious- he’s bringing a certain kind of optimism, joy, and grit.
NYT says that an insider told them the Shapiro thing. To summarize, Shapiro wanted to know his responsibilities and how they'd share the leadership, etc. Walz by contrast asked how he can help and told Harris not to pick him if he won't strengthen her chance of winning.
Ultimately, Harris told the source after the Walz interview that she liked him a lot. And to be fair, her team told her after multiple focus groups and everything that all three final choices would have a path to winning so she went with her gut. Plus, research they had suggested that Kelly nor Shapiro would guarantee their states, anyway.
The article does suggest that this won't be the last we hear of Shapiro as he does have higher ambitions.
Left national guard after two decades to run off public office
Eustice says he remembers Walz struggling with the timing of wanting to serve as a lawmaker but also avoiding asking for a deferment so he could do so.
"He had a window of time. He had to decide. And in his deciding, we were not on notice to be deployed. There were rumors. There were lots of rumors, and we didn't know where we were going until it was later that, early summer, I believe,” Eustice told ABC News.
Also, he did carry weapons of war and “in war”, unless someone wants to correct this.
Walz deployed with the Minnesota National Guard to Italy on Aug. 3, 2003, to support Operation Enduring Freedom, according to the Minnesota Guard. The battalion supported security missions at various locations in Europe and Turkey, according to the Guard, and Walz was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, until returning to Minnesota in 2004. He did not deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.
On operation enduring freedom, part of war on terror
He's borderline the ideal version of what a family man looks like even in their own version of reality. He's a white independently successful retired military, churchgoing, family man. Good luck with that one, couch fuckers.
You mean like protecting reproductive rights, eliminating non-competes, free breakfast and lunch in schools, free community college for low income, legalizing weed and giving people convicted of marijuana crimes to participate in the new industry, sick time requirements?
That's just part of what he'd done in the past two years.
"I hope Tim Walz sexually assaulted teenage boys so we can use it against him" would be such an eye opener if these people had the ability to think about what they were posting.
Vance did 4 years in the military right after high school and then got some kind of sweetheart deal from Ohio State. (He graduated a 4 year degree in 2 years, which just does not happen.) Then went to Yale law school. He took that degree and worked as a corporate lawyer and venture capitalist.
Walz did 23 years in the military and worked as a teacher.
One of them is cosplaying as a blue collar worker from the Midwest and one of them actually is a blue collar worker from the Midwest. Anyone voting for Vance based on that lie deserves what they get.