My favorite thing about Tim Walz is that he’s unapologetic about a government for all the people. Of course we build roads and bridges! Of course we offer a good education to all kids, and give them breakfast and lunch so they’re ready to learn! For too long, Democrats have been playing defense in the face of Reagan-istic attacks on government as the enemy.
The "lunch thing" resonates because the "good education" boast does not. Fixing that requires confronting the Democrats' biggest interests, public unions and the education academy. Good conservatives of both parties have a lot to say about that but aren't heard by either.
I find it hard to believe that the news media lacks insight - these are journalists! Someone/committee is making these editorial decisions. With all this handwringing about the how the media covers Trump versus anyone else, you would think there would be some soul-searching by the media itself, and not just its commentators, an opinion piece, or letters to the editor. To me, this financial conflict of interest is front page news. But who will investigate this? Is the media's power absolute? That is a lot of power without any guardrails. I worry about the October surprise that the media will decide is newsworthy and beat to death - still have PTSD from Hilary's emails.
A more appropriate "false equivalence" story they could offer up is Trump's laugh. Kamala Harris laughs about things, with people. Trump laughs at things and people.
On the "why" question, I've wondered whether publishers and reporters gad become intimidated by Trump and followers and worried that if their coverage offended him he and supporters would threaten them. One recent example of this was their giving Trump a pass on the lack of any official medical report on his injuries from the assignation attempt. Hard to imagine a similar lack of curiosity had some other public figure been targeted.
As far as Mark Kelly, I’m really surprised the media and pundits aren’t focusing more on the real risk of losing this Senate seat in 2026 if he’s picked and what that could mean to the balance of power in the Senate. With so many other good options, I would not take that risk.
I wish Sen. Chris Murphy was getting more attention. He’s proven to be a real force in the Senate in terms of hammering out bipartisan legislation, is a powerful voice in the cause of gun safety, and his Senate seat should be safe if he leaves.
I would be fine with any choice Harris makes. After all, she will have to work with them. I must say I was leaning toward Mark Kelly because of Arizona and his and Gabby's work for gun control. I like both Shapiro and Beshear, but they are such terrific Governors that I'd like them to continue where they are.
My only concern about Kelly is that he's not an inspiring speaker.
Walz covers all bases. Effective Governor, good speaker, great sense of humor, down to earth and definitely shares my values. I'd choose Walz.
Trump's remarks to the Christian Nationalist (not merely "Christian") audience, yes, should have been front-page, above-the-fold news at every U.S. outlet. Yet most U.S. news outlets, to a greater or lesser extent, fail to grasp that. If VP Harris and her running mate win in November, it most definitely will be in spite of the so-called liberal media, not because of it.
As for who Harris's running mate should be, I think Mark Kelly, Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, and Roy Cooper would all make excellent candidates. Of the four, Kelly and Cooper offer the most help from an Electoral College standpoint. That said, as a North Carolinian, I rather selfishly hope Harris doesn't pick Cooper, because we badly need him to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Also, he's 67 now, which means he'd probably be too old for the tastes of a lot of voters to succeed Harris as president in 2032.
But if Walz can bring the entire Upper Midwest, that makes me sit up and listen. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota matter. And so I did sit up and listen this weekend, watching several interviews with him carried out over the past few days. I went from knowing nothing whatsoever about him, including his name, to being pretty captivated by his brand of happy warrior competence and matter of factness. Strong resume and life experiences (e.g., IVF, military) that mean things aren't theoretical or purely political for him. Is there a bad choice on the short list? Seems not. But this fellow really has something special and I want to hear more from him.
The word "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Nothing against Walz, who would make a fine vice president, but whole regions just don't go one way or the other based on who the running mate is. Sometimes single states don't even do so -- U.S. Sen. John Edwards didn't help John Kerry carry North Carolina in 2004. History suggests that the running mate just isn't that important. Yes, Minnesota's important, but I think Harris, with some work, will carry it no matter who her running mate is.
Regardless of whom Harris picks for this race, I'm confident we'll be hearing more from Walz in the future, and I'm heartened by that.
Honestly, I can't care half as much about who the VP will be as I do the fact that that person could be absolutely perfect - zero flaws, no defects - and the media will still both-sides them to death.
To me, it's time for a radical solution. Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” I think the existing media has rendered itself obsolete and it's time for new news orgs and better journalists to rise up.
Ordinary citizens on Twitter are catching and spreading Trump's threats, educating America about Project 2025, and explaining the risks. We shouldn't have to do that. We should just be spreading great information from America's existing news sources instead of acting as public editors. Even left-leaning outlets were slow to spot Project 2025. And I never saw one story or article anywhere with a decent risk/benefit analysis on the idea of forcing Biden out of the race: the closest we got was AOC's hour-long Instagram post.
So I keep coming back to the need for a brand-new, national news org that practices solutions journalism and critical thinking and uses a new model rooted in truth, democracy, equality, justice, and compassion. This org would be a nonprofit, and it would follow a strict policy that no donation, of any amount, bought anyone the right to interfere in the org's inner workiings, decisions, and reporting.
I'd love to see a column on your ideal news org, Margaret. If someone handed you $10 million to start something up...how would you design that org? What model would you use? Do you have students who already embody a sort of "new journalist" that's evolving?
Once again, thanks Margaret. I want to get my substack to you but don’t know how to. I just wrote about the Goebbels playbook which relates to this posting. It’s called History’s First Draft.
I love mayor Pete! But think that for the times, Tim Walz is the best choice. Both are plainspoken, but I think that Tim's experience with the state of MN has given him a platform that is most relatable to the largest cross-section of the voting public.
I think Kamala should go with smart (of course) successfully run campaigns, Young, like her, excellent debater and at no less than governor level at present. Looking around, I'd say Josh Shapiro fits those requirements and adds, he's from Penn. a toss up state. The other possibles don't check these boxes. A senator who used to be an astronat but not a great orator coming from a state like Arizona brings not much to the ticket. See my point. He won't help win Arizona, just improve the size of the loss.
Shapiro has been governor barely two years, and his pro-Bibi positioning is poison to younger voters. A more experienced governor from PA would be ideal from an electoral standpoint, of course.
Shapiro is not pro Bibi, in fact he is anti-Bibi. He is pro Israel as am I and I think most of us are. Bibi is another matter. He needs to go ASAP. I'm unfamiliar with the school voucher issue so I don't have a comment.
Re school vouchers, basically it's tax-payer money given to families to pay for private schools. There are no guardrails such that the private schools meet any of the standards required of public schools. The great majority of private schools are religious schools. Lastly, the great majority of school-voucher recipients are already financially well off.
I am definitely very against that. Private school is a choice parents make. If you choose private, you choose to pay the costs. I chose to send my kids to public schools here in NYC. Best decision I've made. I could have paid the private tuition but that wasn't the point. I wanted my kids to know other kids not exactly like them. Today they are 28 and have friends of every race and creed.
The question is why we should be very dismayed at the idea of Trump winning in November? Maya Angelou writes, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Ironically Charles Murray's similar advice to his conservative friends thinking of voting for Trump in 2016 was the more shopworn, "Sometimes what you see is what you get." But, neither advice answers the question.
I think people play into his hands by waving the flag of authoritarian paranoia. It's hyperbole and insult which is to put yourself on his level. I think the correct complaint is more subtle, not that he is subtle of course. It's that his stream of thought hyperbole and insult cheapens public discourse. In addition his inability to specify his opinions beyond hyperbole and insult displays his ignorance or at best intellectual laziness. That doesn't sound like a horrorshow (It does amuse to think he's like Alex in Clockwork Orange.), but, it's closer to the truth.
I also recommend avoiding charges of racism and sexism in fending off attacks on Harris. The independent voters she's looking for are not moved, indeed numbed by that charge. If your response is, "But America is a racist country", keep that under your hat until after the election. It will look like a tired insult. I mean even Josh Hawley has advised Republicans to stay away from the DEI candidate charge. The main reason why some of her Veep candidates might not be more qualified on paper than she is that she is a woman of color. She's a humane person with long experience in government at every level, and, she's not Donald Trump. That should be more than enough even if, as The Economist says, she "struggles as an extemporaneous speaker, one of the core competencies of political life." Trump does too. He just covers it up with crude oversimplification and insult. This is how I talked myself down from my anger that Party leadership closed the door so quickly on alternative candidates.
I can't believe we're evaluating our presidential candidates by the way they laugh, but, since we often run our elections more like high school popularity contests than serious political events, I guess I should not be surprised. (A cursory reading of American political history shows that candidates have been judged as much on their physical appearances and voices, as their policies and capabilities.) As for a VP pick, I'm agnostic about all. I trust VP Harris to pick the person who can bring complimentary skills and experiences to her administration, but also jump on the campaign train and keep it speeding along.
Walz. His eclectic background hits all the markers. He’s plain spoken and funny. And he’s 60, barely not a boomer but gravitas with the older demographic that votes at a greater rate than others.
As many have noted, I went from “who?” when Marcy Wheeler mentioned him last week to “OMG yes!” He went on FOX News!
AFA Trump and the media coverage are concerned, I understand the repetition in his public talks (they aren’t classical speeches) provides an easy out: how many times does your lede begin: he talked about Hannibal Lecter?
But IF you write about the talk, then you’ve got to note the repeated lies and gibberish.
Both the WaPo and NYT committed journalistic malpractice on Friday. Another possible theory: thin weekend newsrooms?
I thought I had read this twice, then realized I had as a Guardian subscriber as well. (The quote from my former NYU prof Jay Rosen was a "tell.") And it's even better the second time.
My favorite thing about Tim Walz is that he’s unapologetic about a government for all the people. Of course we build roads and bridges! Of course we offer a good education to all kids, and give them breakfast and lunch so they’re ready to learn! For too long, Democrats have been playing defense in the face of Reagan-istic attacks on government as the enemy.
The lunch thing really resonates.
The "lunch thing" resonates because the "good education" boast does not. Fixing that requires confronting the Democrats' biggest interests, public unions and the education academy. Good conservatives of both parties have a lot to say about that but aren't heard by either.
I find it hard to believe that the news media lacks insight - these are journalists! Someone/committee is making these editorial decisions. With all this handwringing about the how the media covers Trump versus anyone else, you would think there would be some soul-searching by the media itself, and not just its commentators, an opinion piece, or letters to the editor. To me, this financial conflict of interest is front page news. But who will investigate this? Is the media's power absolute? That is a lot of power without any guardrails. I worry about the October surprise that the media will decide is newsworthy and beat to death - still have PTSD from Hilary's emails.
I think many of us share that!
A more appropriate "false equivalence" story they could offer up is Trump's laugh. Kamala Harris laughs about things, with people. Trump laughs at things and people.
Does Trump laugh? He jeers, defames, and scorns -- but does he actually display any kind of mirth?
On the "why" question, I've wondered whether publishers and reporters gad become intimidated by Trump and followers and worried that if their coverage offended him he and supporters would threaten them. One recent example of this was their giving Trump a pass on the lack of any official medical report on his injuries from the assignation attempt. Hard to imagine a similar lack of curiosity had some other public figure been targeted.
had become…not "gad:"
As far as Mark Kelly, I’m really surprised the media and pundits aren’t focusing more on the real risk of losing this Senate seat in 2026 if he’s picked and what that could mean to the balance of power in the Senate. With so many other good options, I would not take that risk.
I wish Sen. Chris Murphy was getting more attention. He’s proven to be a real force in the Senate in terms of hammering out bipartisan legislation, is a powerful voice in the cause of gun safety, and his Senate seat should be safe if he leaves.
I would be fine with any choice Harris makes. After all, she will have to work with them. I must say I was leaning toward Mark Kelly because of Arizona and his and Gabby's work for gun control. I like both Shapiro and Beshear, but they are such terrific Governors that I'd like them to continue where they are.
My only concern about Kelly is that he's not an inspiring speaker.
Walz covers all bases. Effective Governor, good speaker, great sense of humor, down to earth and definitely shares my values. I'd choose Walz.
Trump's remarks to the Christian Nationalist (not merely "Christian") audience, yes, should have been front-page, above-the-fold news at every U.S. outlet. Yet most U.S. news outlets, to a greater or lesser extent, fail to grasp that. If VP Harris and her running mate win in November, it most definitely will be in spite of the so-called liberal media, not because of it.
As for who Harris's running mate should be, I think Mark Kelly, Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, and Roy Cooper would all make excellent candidates. Of the four, Kelly and Cooper offer the most help from an Electoral College standpoint. That said, as a North Carolinian, I rather selfishly hope Harris doesn't pick Cooper, because we badly need him to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Also, he's 67 now, which means he'd probably be too old for the tastes of a lot of voters to succeed Harris as president in 2032.
But if Walz can bring the entire Upper Midwest, that makes me sit up and listen. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota matter. And so I did sit up and listen this weekend, watching several interviews with him carried out over the past few days. I went from knowing nothing whatsoever about him, including his name, to being pretty captivated by his brand of happy warrior competence and matter of factness. Strong resume and life experiences (e.g., IVF, military) that mean things aren't theoretical or purely political for him. Is there a bad choice on the short list? Seems not. But this fellow really has something special and I want to hear more from him.
The word "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Nothing against Walz, who would make a fine vice president, but whole regions just don't go one way or the other based on who the running mate is. Sometimes single states don't even do so -- U.S. Sen. John Edwards didn't help John Kerry carry North Carolina in 2004. History suggests that the running mate just isn't that important. Yes, Minnesota's important, but I think Harris, with some work, will carry it no matter who her running mate is.
Regardless of whom Harris picks for this race, I'm confident we'll be hearing more from Walz in the future, and I'm heartened by that.
Yup.
Honestly, I can't care half as much about who the VP will be as I do the fact that that person could be absolutely perfect - zero flaws, no defects - and the media will still both-sides them to death.
To me, it's time for a radical solution. Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” I think the existing media has rendered itself obsolete and it's time for new news orgs and better journalists to rise up.
Ordinary citizens on Twitter are catching and spreading Trump's threats, educating America about Project 2025, and explaining the risks. We shouldn't have to do that. We should just be spreading great information from America's existing news sources instead of acting as public editors. Even left-leaning outlets were slow to spot Project 2025. And I never saw one story or article anywhere with a decent risk/benefit analysis on the idea of forcing Biden out of the race: the closest we got was AOC's hour-long Instagram post.
So I keep coming back to the need for a brand-new, national news org that practices solutions journalism and critical thinking and uses a new model rooted in truth, democracy, equality, justice, and compassion. This org would be a nonprofit, and it would follow a strict policy that no donation, of any amount, bought anyone the right to interfere in the org's inner workiings, decisions, and reporting.
I'd love to see a column on your ideal news org, Margaret. If someone handed you $10 million to start something up...how would you design that org? What model would you use? Do you have students who already embody a sort of "new journalist" that's evolving?
Once again, thanks Margaret. I want to get my substack to you but don’t know how to. I just wrote about the Goebbels playbook which relates to this posting. It’s called History’s First Draft.
Hi; just post a link here, and I’ll check it out. Thanks.
I love mayor Pete! But think that for the times, Tim Walz is the best choice. Both are plainspoken, but I think that Tim's experience with the state of MN has given him a platform that is most relatable to the largest cross-section of the voting public.
I think Kamala should go with smart (of course) successfully run campaigns, Young, like her, excellent debater and at no less than governor level at present. Looking around, I'd say Josh Shapiro fits those requirements and adds, he's from Penn. a toss up state. The other possibles don't check these boxes. A senator who used to be an astronat but not a great orator coming from a state like Arizona brings not much to the ticket. See my point. He won't help win Arizona, just improve the size of the loss.
Shapiro has been governor barely two years, and his pro-Bibi positioning is poison to younger voters. A more experienced governor from PA would be ideal from an electoral standpoint, of course.
His support for private school vouchers is another red flag.
Ayep. Vouchers are a big ol' scam.
Lex,
Shapiro is not pro Bibi, in fact he is anti-Bibi. He is pro Israel as am I and I think most of us are. Bibi is another matter. He needs to go ASAP. I'm unfamiliar with the school voucher issue so I don't have a comment.
Re school vouchers, basically it's tax-payer money given to families to pay for private schools. There are no guardrails such that the private schools meet any of the standards required of public schools. The great majority of private schools are religious schools. Lastly, the great majority of school-voucher recipients are already financially well off.
I am definitely very against that. Private school is a choice parents make. If you choose private, you choose to pay the costs. I chose to send my kids to public schools here in NYC. Best decision I've made. I could have paid the private tuition but that wasn't the point. I wanted my kids to know other kids not exactly like them. Today they are 28 and have friends of every race and creed.
The question is why we should be very dismayed at the idea of Trump winning in November? Maya Angelou writes, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Ironically Charles Murray's similar advice to his conservative friends thinking of voting for Trump in 2016 was the more shopworn, "Sometimes what you see is what you get." But, neither advice answers the question.
I think people play into his hands by waving the flag of authoritarian paranoia. It's hyperbole and insult which is to put yourself on his level. I think the correct complaint is more subtle, not that he is subtle of course. It's that his stream of thought hyperbole and insult cheapens public discourse. In addition his inability to specify his opinions beyond hyperbole and insult displays his ignorance or at best intellectual laziness. That doesn't sound like a horrorshow (It does amuse to think he's like Alex in Clockwork Orange.), but, it's closer to the truth.
I also recommend avoiding charges of racism and sexism in fending off attacks on Harris. The independent voters she's looking for are not moved, indeed numbed by that charge. If your response is, "But America is a racist country", keep that under your hat until after the election. It will look like a tired insult. I mean even Josh Hawley has advised Republicans to stay away from the DEI candidate charge. The main reason why some of her Veep candidates might not be more qualified on paper than she is that she is a woman of color. She's a humane person with long experience in government at every level, and, she's not Donald Trump. That should be more than enough even if, as The Economist says, she "struggles as an extemporaneous speaker, one of the core competencies of political life." Trump does too. He just covers it up with crude oversimplification and insult. This is how I talked myself down from my anger that Party leadership closed the door so quickly on alternative candidates.
I can't believe we're evaluating our presidential candidates by the way they laugh, but, since we often run our elections more like high school popularity contests than serious political events, I guess I should not be surprised. (A cursory reading of American political history shows that candidates have been judged as much on their physical appearances and voices, as their policies and capabilities.) As for a VP pick, I'm agnostic about all. I trust VP Harris to pick the person who can bring complimentary skills and experiences to her administration, but also jump on the campaign train and keep it speeding along.
Walz. His eclectic background hits all the markers. He’s plain spoken and funny. And he’s 60, barely not a boomer but gravitas with the older demographic that votes at a greater rate than others.
As many have noted, I went from “who?” when Marcy Wheeler mentioned him last week to “OMG yes!” He went on FOX News!
AFA Trump and the media coverage are concerned, I understand the repetition in his public talks (they aren’t classical speeches) provides an easy out: how many times does your lede begin: he talked about Hannibal Lecter?
But IF you write about the talk, then you’ve got to note the repeated lies and gibberish.
Both the WaPo and NYT committed journalistic malpractice on Friday. Another possible theory: thin weekend newsrooms?
I include a run down on headlines:
https://themoderatevoice.com/trump-tells-west-palm-beach-audience-that-if-hes-elected-they-wont-have-to-vote-again/
Margaret, here it is https://substack.com/@marylmcneil?utm_source=user-menu
Thanks!
I thought I had read this twice, then realized I had as a Guardian subscriber as well. (The quote from my former NYU prof Jay Rosen was a "tell.") And it's even better the second time.