I will miss Walz here in Minnesota, but my family LOVES him. You missed some more things he did, but that’s the point! He did SO MUCH on such slim margins, and did so much good. Just like Biden.
Walz also increased the pay of home health care workers, not the nurses, but the workers who allow elderly and Disabled people to continue to live at their homes and really significantly so. There was such a severe shortage in such workers. In 2018 they made $12 a hour. In 2024 they were bumped to $19, and 2025 it’ll be $20. As someone who’s alive and has family members able to stay home with me and take care of my needs and all my appointments, obviously a huge deal. And the paid sick leave is a game changer in many ways for such home health care workers, who had nothing at all before 2018.
I’m really happy. I am more like Sanders and AOC philosophically but I’ve always been a pragmatic one, more interested in the art of what’s possible.
Biden really surprised me and everyone and happily so with how progressive and focused on dialing back the problems of the last 40 years he became. Better than expected, transformative even. I’m proud of Biden’s courage in letting go of the nomination. I don’t think the Democratic electorate was rejecting him, just… it was in many ways his sole “negative” and the job of administration he is clearly masterful at, politics also, but not also campaigning. Biden is an excellent president and will be remembered so and you can’t ask for more than that.
Very happy to have a confirmation that we will continue to have a progressive administration, in the Biden-Harris-Walz mold. I do hope that Kamala Harris will retain as much Biden administration as possible, not need reinvent wheel for everything. Very impressed with the antitrust action. The one personnel change I would strongly recommend is the DOJ head.
I couldn’t have expressed my feelings any better than you did here. As you can see, I live in Florida, & our Florida governor, who has a supermajority in our state Congress, has enacted legislation that is reflective of Project 2025. I grew up here, & am sad to see how these changes are detrimental to our once great state, not working for the people, but for those greedy for money & unrestricted power.
The Democrats have navigated an age dominated by the conservative movement by compromising core parts of the Rights Revolutions of the 20th century. Those gains were built out of a spark in labor activism that influenced marginalized groups to call for their basic human rights. The conservative movement was a reactionary process that demonized government efforts to aid impoverished and otherized Americans by playing to the fears of extremists and supremacists. The Walz pick suggest the Democratic Party is evolving out of the fear they developed in the 1980s after losing the presidency, Senate, and eventually the House in the next decade. American political history exists in coalitional cycles, thus the period that brought us deregulation and excessive privatization has proven inadequate and harmful to sustain democratic priorities. I hope the Democratic Party will support Vice President Harris, because there are still many within it who are fine with the plutocratic status quo that a generation is trying to move away from.
Walz is the opposite of the toxic masculinity trump & vance represent. He loves cats! He loves dogs! He clearly his kids! One of my friends said he has big dad energy.
Ok perfect, puuuuurfect. I have not read this yet ==> The Opposite of Toxic Masculinity. A real man , a man’s man whose also a woman’s man. You have nailed it.
“Shapiro and Kelly’s centrist positions would not in the past have disqualified them as vice-presidential contenders. On the contrary, those positions make them seem very suited to a slot formerly filled by Joe Lieberman, Lloyd Bentsen, and Tim Kaine.” And they all lost. So tired of Dems apologizing for being progressives, especially when that label is used to denigrate anything common-sense or compassionate. We need to embrace the label and use it to expose what’s left of the GOP as the cruel, sadistic weirdos they are, pushing “policies” that break up families and harm both individuals and society.
We won't go back! We go forward to Freedom with Joy and Hope! That is what I saw last night, and I liked it. Independents who called in on C-Span seemed to like the Hopefulness too. Republicans who called in may stick with the Trump/Vance talking points, but they recognized that the crowd was fired up and feel worried for their candidate. Who should be worried is Trump, but he won't be because he thinks as long as the Christian Nationalists come out to vote he is in for a lifetime. Vance will not however be lounging on the golf course. He will go out and try to prove Peter Thiel's backing is not in vain because he is going to follow them on the campaign trail, trying to spew his hatred. I feel sorry for the people who embrace that and not the Joy, Hope and Freedom that marks the Harris/Walz administration.
While the choice of Vice Presidential candidate gets a fair bit of attention at the time, in my experience it tends to wash out well before election time and most Vice Presidents in office keep a studiously low profile - usually lower profile than the more prominent cabinet members. What CAN be deduced is comparing the judgement of Presidential contenders in their choice. Here the comparison is stark. Any one of the three short listed candidates (Kelly, Shapiro and Walz) are in a different league to Vance whose lack of achievement and unfitness to step in as President were obvious before his elevation. Trump chose a dud because Trump is a dud.
Trump might be unable to choose a competent candidate for Vice President simply because he can't stand the idea of ANYONE around him being more capable than he thinks he is. Trump is, indeed, a dud. Unfortunately, he does seem to have a sort of dim awareness of his "dud-ness" and thus, very wary of choosing a VP who might, possibly, may be able to outshine his wonderful self. Just the possibility would likely cause that person's name to be stricken from the list. Trump has always been very intolerant of those who might steal the spotlight that he considers his alone.
Throughout this I kept musing on what is now considered "progressive" today--through much of my life these ideals were plain old FDR Democrat as long as you didn't count the ones in the South--and we shed those as I was coming of age. I'm glad that the ideals are slowly being turned into reality.
“In 2016, Hillary Clinton selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine — a swing-state politician with a center-leaning record.”
Sometimes I wonder if these self-styled Tim Kaine experts have ever so much as set foot in Virginia. Kaine is a solid liberal, by some measures to the left of Elizabeth Warren.
"[F]or the last 40 years or so, Democrats like Walz haven’t been chosen for VP. Instead, Democratic presidential candidates have often used their running mate selections to appeal to swing voters and independents[.]"
True. But this election is unlike those of the past 40 yrs.
Trump picked a mini-Trump and Kamala chose a VP with similar policies as her own for the same reason.
Whereas previous presidential candidates chose VPs to help them win, today's candidates chose like-minded VPs to excite their bases to form a "movement" to achieve the WH.
Trump hopes his MAGA base will get him in so as to avoid jail time.
Kamala is hoping to entice the public already supporting her to GOTV and let THEM appeal to swing voters and Independents.
"Movement" Politics is the politics of the future.
Yeah, I love this choice. For too long Democrats have been sliding more center. So much, in fact, that Dems are looking more Centrist than Left. This shift is precisely what we need. And my fam in Minnesota said he's an exceptional governor. That's a good sign.
::Biden came into office with a record as a moderate compromiser. He was not the choice of most progressives or leftists, who would have preferred Sanders or Warren in the 2020 primary. But once in office, Biden embraced a range of popular progressive proposals. ::
Yeah, and wasn't THAT a shock-a-roonie? I was dreading Hillary Redux, full of "Republican-with-a-'D'-After-Their-Name" BS that Bernie Sanders rightly ran against and castigated her for...and which, for the first time in ages, gave me hope for the Democratic Party. (I still haven't forgotten, or forgiven, Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying about Obama's "benign neglect" of gay rights in his first term, "Where ELSE are they going to go?")
While I don't think Biden went near Left enough, that he went anywhere in the ballpark of Progressive policies surprised and pleased me greatly. With any luck Walz signals the desire to overturn racist anti-pot legislation as well as continuing Biden's strong support for unions.
While I'm not in love with Harris's prior hard stances on Marijuana Law Enforcement* and Truancy(?!?), nor her giving Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin a pass for his aggressive foreclosures while heading up OneWest (and him giving her...generous campaign contributions in return!)? Her using her prior record as a Prosecutor against Convicted Felon Donald Trump makes up for a lot—as does her driving him incandescent with bigoted rage.
_____
* Harris holding those positions in California, one of the first states to have decriminalized pot in the 1970s, in the 1990s put her in the same category as Nazi Seventies LA Police Police Chief Ed Davis—as we called him at the time!
I will miss Walz here in Minnesota, but my family LOVES him. You missed some more things he did, but that’s the point! He did SO MUCH on such slim margins, and did so much good. Just like Biden.
Walz also increased the pay of home health care workers, not the nurses, but the workers who allow elderly and Disabled people to continue to live at their homes and really significantly so. There was such a severe shortage in such workers. In 2018 they made $12 a hour. In 2024 they were bumped to $19, and 2025 it’ll be $20. As someone who’s alive and has family members able to stay home with me and take care of my needs and all my appointments, obviously a huge deal. And the paid sick leave is a game changer in many ways for such home health care workers, who had nothing at all before 2018.
I’m really happy. I am more like Sanders and AOC philosophically but I’ve always been a pragmatic one, more interested in the art of what’s possible.
Biden really surprised me and everyone and happily so with how progressive and focused on dialing back the problems of the last 40 years he became. Better than expected, transformative even. I’m proud of Biden’s courage in letting go of the nomination. I don’t think the Democratic electorate was rejecting him, just… it was in many ways his sole “negative” and the job of administration he is clearly masterful at, politics also, but not also campaigning. Biden is an excellent president and will be remembered so and you can’t ask for more than that.
Very happy to have a confirmation that we will continue to have a progressive administration, in the Biden-Harris-Walz mold. I do hope that Kamala Harris will retain as much Biden administration as possible, not need reinvent wheel for everything. Very impressed with the antitrust action. The one personnel change I would strongly recommend is the DOJ head.
I couldn’t have expressed my feelings any better than you did here. As you can see, I live in Florida, & our Florida governor, who has a supermajority in our state Congress, has enacted legislation that is reflective of Project 2025. I grew up here, & am sad to see how these changes are detrimental to our once great state, not working for the people, but for those greedy for money & unrestricted power.
The Democrats have navigated an age dominated by the conservative movement by compromising core parts of the Rights Revolutions of the 20th century. Those gains were built out of a spark in labor activism that influenced marginalized groups to call for their basic human rights. The conservative movement was a reactionary process that demonized government efforts to aid impoverished and otherized Americans by playing to the fears of extremists and supremacists. The Walz pick suggest the Democratic Party is evolving out of the fear they developed in the 1980s after losing the presidency, Senate, and eventually the House in the next decade. American political history exists in coalitional cycles, thus the period that brought us deregulation and excessive privatization has proven inadequate and harmful to sustain democratic priorities. I hope the Democratic Party will support Vice President Harris, because there are still many within it who are fine with the plutocratic status quo that a generation is trying to move away from.
Walz is the opposite of the toxic masculinity trump & vance represent. He loves cats! He loves dogs! He clearly his kids! One of my friends said he has big dad energy.
Ok perfect, puuuuurfect. I have not read this yet ==> The Opposite of Toxic Masculinity. A real man , a man’s man whose also a woman’s man. You have nailed it.
Walz is a sci-fi/fantasy fan. You know, unlike vance, he doesnt think Sauron got a raw deal.
“Shapiro and Kelly’s centrist positions would not in the past have disqualified them as vice-presidential contenders. On the contrary, those positions make them seem very suited to a slot formerly filled by Joe Lieberman, Lloyd Bentsen, and Tim Kaine.” And they all lost. So tired of Dems apologizing for being progressives, especially when that label is used to denigrate anything common-sense or compassionate. We need to embrace the label and use it to expose what’s left of the GOP as the cruel, sadistic weirdos they are, pushing “policies” that break up families and harm both individuals and society.
We won't go back! We go forward to Freedom with Joy and Hope! That is what I saw last night, and I liked it. Independents who called in on C-Span seemed to like the Hopefulness too. Republicans who called in may stick with the Trump/Vance talking points, but they recognized that the crowd was fired up and feel worried for their candidate. Who should be worried is Trump, but he won't be because he thinks as long as the Christian Nationalists come out to vote he is in for a lifetime. Vance will not however be lounging on the golf course. He will go out and try to prove Peter Thiel's backing is not in vain because he is going to follow them on the campaign trail, trying to spew his hatred. I feel sorry for the people who embrace that and not the Joy, Hope and Freedom that marks the Harris/Walz administration.
While the choice of Vice Presidential candidate gets a fair bit of attention at the time, in my experience it tends to wash out well before election time and most Vice Presidents in office keep a studiously low profile - usually lower profile than the more prominent cabinet members. What CAN be deduced is comparing the judgement of Presidential contenders in their choice. Here the comparison is stark. Any one of the three short listed candidates (Kelly, Shapiro and Walz) are in a different league to Vance whose lack of achievement and unfitness to step in as President were obvious before his elevation. Trump chose a dud because Trump is a dud.
Trump might be unable to choose a competent candidate for Vice President simply because he can't stand the idea of ANYONE around him being more capable than he thinks he is. Trump is, indeed, a dud. Unfortunately, he does seem to have a sort of dim awareness of his "dud-ness" and thus, very wary of choosing a VP who might, possibly, may be able to outshine his wonderful self. Just the possibility would likely cause that person's name to be stricken from the list. Trump has always been very intolerant of those who might steal the spotlight that he considers his alone.
I am getting to like this Happy Warrior more and more.
Throughout this I kept musing on what is now considered "progressive" today--through much of my life these ideals were plain old FDR Democrat as long as you didn't count the ones in the South--and we shed those as I was coming of age. I'm glad that the ideals are slowly being turned into reality.
Biden ending up being better than Obama and HRC.
Thank you!
Necessary piece!
Excited by the choice.
Couldn’t agree more. As a leftist I was rooting for Walz and beyond excited by the choice.
“In 2016, Hillary Clinton selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine — a swing-state politician with a center-leaning record.”
Sometimes I wonder if these self-styled Tim Kaine experts have ever so much as set foot in Virginia. Kaine is a solid liberal, by some measures to the left of Elizabeth Warren.
"[F]or the last 40 years or so, Democrats like Walz haven’t been chosen for VP. Instead, Democratic presidential candidates have often used their running mate selections to appeal to swing voters and independents[.]"
True. But this election is unlike those of the past 40 yrs.
Trump picked a mini-Trump and Kamala chose a VP with similar policies as her own for the same reason.
Whereas previous presidential candidates chose VPs to help them win, today's candidates chose like-minded VPs to excite their bases to form a "movement" to achieve the WH.
Trump hopes his MAGA base will get him in so as to avoid jail time.
Kamala is hoping to entice the public already supporting her to GOTV and let THEM appeal to swing voters and Independents.
"Movement" Politics is the politics of the future.
Yeah, I love this choice. For too long Democrats have been sliding more center. So much, in fact, that Dems are looking more Centrist than Left. This shift is precisely what we need. And my fam in Minnesota said he's an exceptional governor. That's a good sign.
We do love him here in Minnesota!
::Biden came into office with a record as a moderate compromiser. He was not the choice of most progressives or leftists, who would have preferred Sanders or Warren in the 2020 primary. But once in office, Biden embraced a range of popular progressive proposals. ::
Yeah, and wasn't THAT a shock-a-roonie? I was dreading Hillary Redux, full of "Republican-with-a-'D'-After-Their-Name" BS that Bernie Sanders rightly ran against and castigated her for...and which, for the first time in ages, gave me hope for the Democratic Party. (I still haven't forgotten, or forgiven, Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying about Obama's "benign neglect" of gay rights in his first term, "Where ELSE are they going to go?")
While I don't think Biden went near Left enough, that he went anywhere in the ballpark of Progressive policies surprised and pleased me greatly. With any luck Walz signals the desire to overturn racist anti-pot legislation as well as continuing Biden's strong support for unions.
While I'm not in love with Harris's prior hard stances on Marijuana Law Enforcement* and Truancy(?!?), nor her giving Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin a pass for his aggressive foreclosures while heading up OneWest (and him giving her...generous campaign contributions in return!)? Her using her prior record as a Prosecutor against Convicted Felon Donald Trump makes up for a lot—as does her driving him incandescent with bigoted rage.
_____
* Harris holding those positions in California, one of the first states to have decriminalized pot in the 1970s, in the 1990s put her in the same category as Nazi Seventies LA Police Police Chief Ed Davis—as we called him at the time!
I saw what you did there at the end. Good one! Keep it up: We won’t go back!