With the announcement that Tim Walz would be Kamala Harris’s running mate, I went back to listen to Ezra Klein’s interview with Governor Walz, which came out last week.
I was impressed. Walz is articulate and energetic. He is focused on actual, real-world solutions to the problems people experience. He speaks in plain, jargon-free English. And — this is good — he’s not a lawyer! Nothing against lawyers, but there are just too many of them in politics. Walz was a National Guardsman, a schoolteacher, and football coach before running for Congress in 2005. He’s not a lifer as a politician.
But what I liked most of all was what Walz had to say about grace. Here’s an excerpt:
“I think the Democrats’ way out of this is with optimism and a sense of grace toward folks. I want to be very careful. Like I said, those folks at those rallies, you insult them at great peril. Your neighbor is flying the flag, you insult them at great peril. Because they’re my relatives. They truly are, and I know them.”
Klein followed by asking Walz to talk about what grace in politics looks like. Walz began by saying what it doesn’t look like, pointing to the disdain and contempt that are elemental to former President Trump’s style and message. Trump, said Walz, turns those who disagree with him not simply into an opposing party or viewpoint, but into “the enemy.” He is “masterful” at making someone the “other,” and so dehumanizing them — a dark art Walz termed “very, very dangerous.”
By contrast, Walz (who made headlines recently by saying that Trump and Vance are just kind of “weird”) was very careful to say that this was not his view of those who support Trump or attend his rallies. Speaking of Trump rally-goers, Walz said, “These aren’t stupid people. These are smart people. But there’s a frustration of: Why aren’t things working? Why are they so complex?”
Walz refused to demonize the rural and smalltown people, many of whom have swung to Trump, because Walz knows them. They are his people. He comes from a town of 400 people, a farming community, where the high school’s graduating class numbered 24. That could describe many of the towns out here in Eastern Oregon, whence I write.
Walz continued with an image:
“The thing is, we have to get them away from what he’s trying to sell because that’s not who they are. Just picture in your mind Donald Trump coming home after a day of work and picking up a Frisbee and throwing it. And his dog catches it, and the dog runs over, and Donald gives him a good belly rub because he’s a good boy. That’s what I do. And that’s what those rallygoers do. That is exactly who they are, and they’re going through the same things all of our families are.”
Sounds like grace in politics to me. Respect people. Listen to them. Take them seriously. Moreover, Walz argued that if voters aren’t buying what the Democrats are selling, that’s not on the voters. That’s on the Democrats. He used an analogy from his school-teaching days: “If 90% of the students fail a test, something is wrong with my teaching.” He concluded:
“So, I keep coming back to this. If they’re not voting for us, there’s not something wrong with them; there’s something that’s not quite clicking. So don’t assume they’re just not clever enough to understand what you’re selling them.”
That tendency has been one of the great failings of today’s progressive elites, the habit of thinking — and communicating — that people who don’t buy what they’re selling are simply stupid or ill-informed or, worse, expendable.
So, with Tim Walz, who by the way is a Lutheran, an element of grace comes to politics, and not a moment too soon. And score a big one for Kamala Harris.
Good comment on Walz, but not much “grace” in your assessment of lawyers. Don’t overlook the need for developed skills in the professions. If some professionals don’t measure up to your standards, do you say there are too many doctors in medicine, or ministers in the pulpit?
Very generous Anthony …but…..how do these nice, dog belly rubbing people embrace with such enthusiasm this mean, cruel, ever mocking, egotistical, pathologically lying, selfish, “for sale”, con man?
Is it really just frustration with the complexities of the modern world?
Sorry, I don’t buy it. There’s a disconnect.Have you ever heard respectfulness/generosity from his supporters.
Is their tone , “ oh those democrats, nice people but just a little misguided. “
Sure I try to treat them as human beings deserving their space. their beloved future fuhrer and the most vocal supporters sure don’t.
Please , share with me the reasoned “ vote for trump” case
Lots of people have offered this kind of sentiment, but I haven’t seen anyone really come to grips with the fundamental problem.
Suppose we go back couple hundred years, and the regular folks you want to reach think black people belong in slavery, and nothing you can say seems to get through.
Apply your grace. Respect people. Listen to them. Take them seriously. Really?
Sure, you aren’t going to get much traction if you abuse them, but you aren’t going to really listen to them in the kind of two-way street that seems to be the fantasy scene here. There’s a fundamental problem with a viewpoint that these people are hanging on to, and there’s going to be trouble if something doesn’t change. Maybe “grace” has a role here, but someone’s going to have to do a better job of explaining what it is.
Robinson is right about how to treat people with Trumpish views even if that treatment won’t change most of their minds. We only need to shave off a small percent of voters, not all of them. And over time, by addressing our fundamental economic inequities, we can soften the fears that underlie the hate.
Like Michelle Obama said “ When they go low. We go high. “
Those were the days. Unfortunately, it’s now looking like “When they go low, we go lower.”
Need I point out that Walz is not running for President? Wish he were – I’d vote for him in a New York minute.
Does this comment indicate you’re voting for Trump? If so, I’d really like to know why you’d vote for Walz (Walz/Kamala?) but not Kamala/Walz.