[Updated x 3] Picking Walz Is NOT Antisemitism
The anti-DEI party is suddenly really concerned about identity
As you have heard by now, Kamala Harris has chosen avuncular Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential pick. One immediate reflection is how quickly Walz’s rise to prominence in the veepstakes happened. When I wrote about possible VP prospects two weeks ago, his name wasn’t circulated in many “top picks” lists. Again, this is why you shouldn’t trust any prognostications I make.
Looking at the online reaction, most Democrats and progressives posting about this are somewhere on the scale from satisfied to ecstatic. Harris-leaning Republicans seem somewhere between ok with this and disappointed it wasn’t Shapiro (who they rightfully see and being more conservative). Trump supporters hate the decision, which is their right and makes sense. However, the line some are initially taking is telling. For example:
This line of attack was previewed yesterday by Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. From The Daily Beast:
Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt before the announcement on Tuesday, Vance said he would be “stunned” if Harris did not choose Shapiro.
“I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of anti-Semitism in their own caucus and in their own party. I think it’s disgraceful that the Democrats have gotten to this point where it’s even an open conversation, and it is an open conversation,” he told Hewitt.
Again, it’s not unexpected that the Trump campaign and its supporters are already attacking Walz. It’s exactly what they should be doing. But this particular line of attack is unique in so far as all of these people (and others advancing this attack) have all been extremely vocal about DEI and “wokeness” in general.
All of them, at one time or another, have attacked Harris as a DEI selection for Vice President. And yet, they are all staking a position that ultimately argues for a form of DEI: that not picking the one Jewish candidate (out of many candidates) is clearly a sign of anti-semitism. This is a case of going so far in one direction that you end up arguing for the position you publicly reject.
By this thinking, Trump is clearly a racist for not picking Tim Scott (the only Black person he was reportedly considering). Or it means that Trump had a bias against Cubans and Latinos for not picking Marco Rubio. After all, there can be “only one reason” to pass over those far more experienced Senators and Republican party leaders for political neophyte J. D. Vance.
Erickson and Mandel’s positions seem especially out-there given no Republican ticket has featured a Jewish person either (and beyond McCain’s Lieberman hail Mary, I can’t think of a recent case where a Jewish person was considered for the ticket). Then we also have the case that Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband and the father of her step-children, is Jewish (though according to Donald Trump, he’s a crappy, horrible Jew).
Even speaking as a Harris supporter, there are a lot of policy topics that the Trump campaign and its surrogates could attack Walz on. The fact that one of the first lines of attack is an identity-based one suggests that the campaign continues to think that racism is a winning issue. And that could be for its base. That said, they should also remember that it’s a motivating one for the Democratic base to turn out to vote as well.
[Update 3: Okay, why has it taken me hours to remember that in 2000, Joe Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential candidate, making him the first and so far only Jewish person on the Presidential ticket? Also, FWIW, current Attorney General Merrit Garland, also is Jewish. And there are other high-ranking Jewish folks in the current administration.
Also, frankly, why did none of our dear commenters “Um… Actually…” me on this one?! ]
[Update 2: Best response I have seen so far to this line of thinking via Xtter:
[Update 1: I see #TamponTim is “rising” on Twitter. It’s great to see that the online component of the Trump Campaign and the Republican party is working hard to run against that “weird” thing. For the uninitiated, this is about Walz signing a bill that required tampons to be stocked in all bathrooms (including male ones) in public and charter schools. Despite what you will hear, it wasn’t specifically about stocking them in male bathrooms. Like other legislation making school lunches free, this was a poverty mitigation measure.]
Well, when all you have is a hammer, every issue looks like a nail.
Yes because there have been so many Jewish pols on Republican presidential tickets over the years. In fact the only Jewish person who actually made it on a national ticket, that I recall, was Joe Liberman. Maybe there were others I just can’t recall them.
“Then we also have the case that Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband and the father of her step-children, is Jewish (though according to Donald Trump, he’s a crappy, horrible Jew).”
Since Trump’s definition of a good Jew is one who supports Trump, I don’t think Shapiro would count either.
… oh I forgot about Berry Goldwater ….
This election period is going to feel like a century if we’re expected to react to every stupid bigoted remark Trump Vance and their harem make about pretty much anything.
@Rick DeMent:
According t0 Wikipedia’s article on Goldwater: “Goldwater’s parents were married in an Episcopal church in Phoenix; for his entire life, Goldwater was an Episcopalian, though on rare occasions he referred to himself as Jewish.”
MAGAts are upset because they had all their anti-semitic attack lines ready to go and dammit, she picked a gentile. They aren’t very agile, are they, the Trumpies? Biden handed off to Harris, what, two weeks ago? And Trump still hasn’t found his sea legs. The phrase, ‘one-trick pony,’ comes to mind. He’s got the racial and gender resentment and. . . Nothing.
Trump’s only policy position on every issue is, ‘only I can fix it.’ And his idiot followers never ask, ‘how’ because he’s not a man, you see, he is the True Messiah. Screw Jesus and his blessed this and blessed that, they want violence and oppression fueled by fear and resentment and hate. So out the window goes Jesus, and in comes a false prophet so blatantly obvious he might as well have ‘Golden Calf’ tattooed on his forehead.
It’s all clearly predicted in Two Corinthians. Page 425 of the Trump Bible, just $59.99.
@Not the IT Dept.:
To be transparent, the only I choose to comment on this is it is such an obvious reversal of previously held positions about the role of race/identity in picking a candidate.
Generally speaking I agree with your point.
Let they who has had a Jew on their presidential ticket cast the first stone.
@Michael Reynolds: well, given how he’s been acting (and what he’s likely to do to the world if he does get re-elected), there’s more evidence that Trump is the Anti-Christ….
If this is the best the Republicans can come up with as an attack, I have to finally allow myself some optimism that Harris-Walz got this in the bag. That is some weak tea.
Anti-Semitism has rarely been part of the conversation over DEI and wokeness. Part of the reason is that there isn’t much of a representation problem when it comes to Jews in either the professional work force of the political and judicial system. But, also, the right has this constant desire to paint itself as the white-knight protectors of the Jewish people. When Trump goes on his rants about how American Jews should have their head examined for supporting Democrats, it’s important to understand that he’s saying something right-wing Jews strongly agree with. For example, many years ago Ben Shapiro–not the biggest Trump fan in the world–called Jews who voted for Obama “JINOs”–Jews In Name Only. It amounts basically to the idea that most American Jews don’t know what’s good for them. It’s different from the more traditional, explicit anti-Semitism of the Nick Fuentes crowd, as it’s filtered through a paternalistic lens, Gentile Man’s Burden.
@Not the IT Dept.: Goldwater was in fact subject to anti-Semitic attacks during his career. But they died down a little when he became the Republican nominee in 1964, given that a great deal of his support came from white supremacists who didn’t like Jews but were willing to cast that issue aside due to his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. The racist, anti-Semitic pastor Gerald L.K. Smith worked hard to persuade his allies that, despite Goldwater’s Jewish ancestry, he was in fact a good Christian who deserved their support.
Digging their own grave, I think. You can’t actually believe this and be alive anywhere in America in 2024.
@Kylopod:
This echoes many right commentators using terms like “the Democrat’s plantation” when opining about how, in their opinion, Black Americans are backing the wrong party.
Another line of attack that will probably work well with his base, although a portion of his base seems to be Proud Boy types who might switch over to the Democrats if they truly believe they are antisemitic. Can’t imagine that anyone other than the base will buy it, and the stupidity might help Democratic turnout. And speaking as Jew, I have never met any Jews who would not think that this narrative is anything but horseshit.
The only thing that surprises me about this attack is that all of them managed to upload the “Dems hate Jews” instead of the other post they had written saying “Dems hate Palestinians” that they would have posted if she picked Shapiro. You’d think one of them would have slipped up
Test
I’ve updated the post with a few more public statements.
The one that really blows my mind is Ilya Sharpiro saying “The Walz selection shows just how deep the Dems’ antisemitism problem runs.”
For those with a short memory, the last time Sharpiro spoke out on identity politics, he said that too much of a focus on them led to “a lesser Black woman” being nominated for the Supreme Court.
But of course, the only right VP pick was the Jewish candidate… because… reasons.
“There are fine people on both sides.”
@Kylopod:
Gaza has given GOPs an opportunity to have way too much fun pretending anti-semitism isn’t predominantly a RW thing.
People keep wanting to make it about one single thing. Shapiro is not very good on climate change and the environment. Shapiro’s proposed school vouchers for private and religious schools doesn’t play well in some other parts of the country. There’s a sexual harassment case in the background involving a former senior Shapiro aide that has the potential to blow up if people really start digging into it.
Well, we can point out to any @ssH0les who have decided that’s a logical line of response that sure, you want tampons in the boy’s bathrooms in a school too, because tampons are EXCELLENT for stanching blood flow from bullet wounds, and then follow up with a question about how they would address school shootings.
What children these Republicans are.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/tim-walz-took-historic-action-to
Has anyone seen any actual Dem constituency complain about this pick? I don’t mean the chattering radical centrist whiner writers/journalists. Like actual tapped in people, Black Leaders, Black Women, Unions, Queers, progressives, hell even the radical centrists themselves? Just to name a few off the top of my head. I guess I’m not interested in what the Republicans are saying, cause everything out of their mouths is BS. What’s the Dem side saying?
On the tampon dispensers in boys’ restrooms thing, in the district I taught in the boys’ room had condom dispensers. Either way, the district stopped stocking them when students did the mature thing and started flushing tampons, pads and handfuls of condoms down the commodes.
Yet another “This is why we can’t have nice things” example.
@Jen: Sadly the bullet wound thing is the first thought I had when I read about tampons in the boy’s room.
@Beth:
Generally good things from what I have seen.
Much like with Harris, everyone seems to be on board.
Republicans for Harris are frustrated with the pick not being Shapiro.
@mattbernius:
After the speech he just made, I think this mornings VEEP second guessers are going to quickly change their tune…
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
When I was in High School we used to tear the doors off the stalls in the boys bathrooms and ride them down the halls. I believe we called it “surfing”. They eventually stopped putting them back up.
@mattbernius:
I don’t care what they think, if they want a voice they can join the party. Otherwise they can remain frustrated and unhinged, much like my high school’s bathroom stall doors.
If all you do is performative politics, then all you see is performative politics.
I pegged it a week ago – if Harris doesn’t pick Shapiro R’s will kvetch about anti-Semitism, guaranteed. They delivered.
As everyone has noted – had Shapiro been chosen he would have been slagged as a DEI hire.
I grew up in Minnesota. Walz, a D, beating Gutknecht in that CD was a big deal. That CD is pretty solidly R, not super hard – 55-45, but traditionally R. Think Mankato, Austin part of southern Minnesota. Rochester. Small scale rural farms cheek by jowl to big-ass operations that produce thousands of pigs, turkeys, cows for the slaughterhouses. It is the home of Hormel.
A D, Walz, won that CD and beat an incumbent thought too well entrenched to ever be dislodged. Walz was outspent like 7 to 1. Still won, still beat Gutnecht. A D in R territory beating a shoo-in.
Never underestimate Minnesota Nice.
Conservatives love to deploy tokens and “play the race card” because they believe that all the talk about racism is just a big con job, a fraud by hustlers to gain power over weak insecure liberals.
I’m getting a lot of the same vibes I got during the 2008 campaign. Obama did something new, and the GOP acted like it didn’t know what hit them. Same here. They are just genuinely unclear about what happened in the last few weeks, and why, and where it came from.
@Beth: Another reason to not care about what Republicans are saying about the pick is that they don’t vote Democratic to begin with. Just sayin’.
@Beth: I’ve always wondered what vandalizing the toilet stalls was about. This stuff is after my time.
That doesn’t explain the high school where the halls are carpeted though. 🙁
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Also, at the schools I attended, the toilet stalls didn’t have privacy doors to begin with. We had urinals with floor drains though and used to flood the restroom by plugging the drains with paper towels, but the floors were stone and/or ceramic tile (buildings built in the 50s and earlier) so nobody cared much. The floor overall draining to the center of the room helped some, too.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Boys locker room at my school when I was in school had an open plan shower room. It was brutal – 20 kids showering in a tiled, cement box with no privacy curtains or barriers at at all. A bare room. It was 20 folks showering next to each other in a bare room. Even at the time that was brutally conformist – you had to comply with the institutional decision to shower communally. There was no opt out – you had to.
I was sorta okay with it, for myself, but understood how it could be a major problem for a lot of folks.
Back then being okay with communal showers / nakedness was equated with good citizenship. All good boys and girls complied with school mandated mutual nakedness. It was a basic requirement. A truly determined society wants you to comply. Accept the inevitable.
Looking back, it makes me sick, but I complied at the time. I showered communally. It was expected of me so I did it. At the time it seemed normal.
It isn’t normal.
Dude didn’t attend law school. How uncommon is that?
@de stijl: We had the same configuration in both middle and high school. I was raised on an “everything that doesn’t kill you…” model for a worldview, so I have no path to understand your comment beyond knowing what the words you say mean generally.
Subbing as a PE teacher shows me that the configuration hasn’t changed any but the rooms are more crowded. That and no one showers anymore. Laundering towels costs money so only varsity athletes and swimmers shower.
@Jen: Seen online: Tampon Tim is going to stop the Red Wave.
I can remember being in grade school in the ’50s and showering in a common shower room with other 5th grade boys. The only thing that I really remember about 5th and 6th grade PE was the teacher. I do believe his name was Coach Cobb. He was a soccer fanatic! All we ever did was play soccer. When it was spring and fall and PE class was outside and we all wanted to play baseball or football he had us learning how to dribble with our feet.
In the winter when we were in the gym and we wanted to pay basketball it was pin soccer. Two pins were at each end of the gym and when a team knocked down one of the pins they scored a point.
“Soccer is the game of the future!” he said. When you graduate from High School in 1966 there won’t be any more baseball or football or basketball. Everyone will be watching soccer!
In 1996:
World Series-Baltimore Orioles win 4 games to 0 over the Los Angeles Dodgers
NBA Finals-Boston Celtics won 4 games to 3 over the Los Angeles Lakers.
American Football League Championship – Kansas City Chiefs won 31–7 over the Buffalo Bills
National Football League Championship – Green Bay Packers won 34–27 over the Dallas Cowboys
In January 1967 the Chiefs and the Packers met in the first AFL–NFL World Championship Game.
Final score Green Bay 35-Kansas City 10
Sorry Coach.
@Mister Bluster:..pay basketball…
…play basketball…
@Mister Bluster:..In 1996…
In 1966…
I am starting to really miss the EDIT key…
@just nutha:
Enforced communal nakedness for tweens and teens is really fucked up.
It’s meant to be getting you used to accepting and going along with really fucked up ideas about how you accept what authority tells you to do. You’re in seventh grade. Get naked in front of all your peers and shower now. Your grade depends upon this. You must comply.
At the time I didn’t care that much, didn’t object, but looking back it really creeps me out very hard. We’re not Sparta. PE at the time was sort of preliminary military training. It was expected that we were going to face the Soviet Union militarily. It was Spartan.
We were viewed as potential conscripts. Getting us over being icked out by enforced mutual nakedness from school PE was intended. Enforced shared nakedness amongst tweens was the policy. It was intentional. They meant it to happen and as a direct result a generation or two of predarory ephebophile gym teachers had a buffet of terrified victims who had to remain silent.
It’s fucking disgusting on every level. It’s political indoctrination and subservience. And unintended, but extremely predictable sexual abuse malice.
@de stijl: So I have a somewhat different take on it. I was indeed scared of the communal showers, but wasn’t *forced* into it. It was available in middle school and high school, but me being late in the puberty department meant I didn’t partake until senior year of high school. That’s when I finally was overcome with the need to freshen up for a girl in my class after gym.
But what this mental battle also did is it started to make me question my upbringing and the lesson that our nudity was shameful and evil. The other boys who used the showers really seemed like it was no big deal, and I got comfortable with it. The gym teacher wasn’t creepy, and signed a late pass without question if the class or shower went a little long. Everybody was cool about it.
So for me it was liberating, and I’m not shy but neither am I an exhibitionist. And I don’t get uptight around others skimpy or non-existent clothing. That is certainly not what my parents taught – they were the “cover your eyes” sort.
@de stijl: Same here.
As I may not get to blogging about this, the Bulwark is reporting that the Trump campaign was actively involved in supporting the whisper campaign against Shapiro:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-world-fueled-anti-shapiro-whisper-campaign
So, I was travelling in England last November. We stayed for a few days in Lumley Castle. It was very fun, but I was discombobulated when I walked in to the men’s restroom, stepped up to the urinal, and there, at eye level, was a little basket with some tampons in it.
I had a sudden panic – was I in the wrong restroom? Then I look down at the urinal. No, that can’t be it. Sight of relief, then puzzlement. Why are there tampons here? (Eyeroll at past self for being so slow on the uptake) OH! Ok, I get it. [There are trans men who need tampons. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t get it right away, neither did I.]
I scampered off happy. I mean, how much does it cost to do that? Almost nothing, right? But it makes a few people feel welcome and validated, so that’s a good tradeoff, as far as I’m concerned.
A panopticon prison affords inmates more privacy while showering than public schools did in the 70s.
Please tell me it has improved since then.
@de stijl: I was among the smallest kids in my class, junior high school in the mid-70s. Gym was mandatory, but I skipped the showers and just stank to hell every day, living in my sour sweat. Yeah, traumatic.
Oh the shock of North American tourists in Iceland where you are required to shower before entering a public pool, with enforcement. Different standards of modesty?