So Kamala Harris has announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her VP and while I didn't post my predictions publicly I did correctly predict that her VP would be 1. A white man 2. A governor 3. from the Midwest so ding ding ding look at me I'm a real Nate Silver over here.
This has surprised a lot of pundits because Walz is decidedly a Progressive Governor. Everyone expected her to be courting conservative voters with her pick, and Walz is quite the opposite. Ever since Biden dropped out, the Democrats have suddenly been making tons of very progressive and shocking announcements such as a proposal for Supreme Court Term Limits, endorsement of national rent control, and even claiming to be calling for a ceasefire in I/P (though this has not been backed up with sanctions or cutting IS off from US aid). Now with the Walz pick, it's pretty clear that the Democrats have decided that trying to deprogram Trump's character cult is a losing strategy and are instead trying to win back the progressive base they've been alienating through their support of Israel.
Tim Walz has a very strong record on trans right. Kamala Harris (wrongfully) has a poor reputation in the trans community due to misinformation spread about her in 2020 (she did not put trans women in men's prisons or deny GRS to trans prisoners, quite the opposite). The UK Labour Party turned their back on trans people, and I'm relieved to see that this pick is a pretty strong sign that the Democrats aren't planning on doing the same. Trans people, among many minority groups, are essentially held hostage in the US political system. It is an act of pure self-preservation to vote for the only viable party that will not try to eliminate your legal existence and access to healthcare, even if you hate everything else about said party. When push comes to shove, even the most adamant critic of the Democrats, so they hope, will end up voting for them anyway out of self-preservation.
For every trans person, that person comes with friends and family who love and support them. Trans rights are a major part of the "culture war" that turns people into single-issue voters, which is very good for the two-party oligarchy. This makes it strategic to push hard on LGBTQ rights. Even the most conservative people can have their entire political outlook changed by knowing a trans person under a two-party system. I have met a lot of people in my days who have conservative upbringings and yet are single-issue voters on the topic of trans rights. "I prefer fiscally conservative policies, but obviously I'm voting for the party that will protect my loved ones" is a refrain I've heard a lot from parents of trans kids, cishet partners of trans people, or random nerds who have a friend in their D&D party who went and transitioned one day. There's a lot of people who become pro-trans because they were helped by a friendly transgender librarian and now they're reconsidering everything else. We're like little viruses that infect people with progressive worldviews. Or a vaccine against right wing conspiracy theories. LGBT people make up 10% of the country, so 1 in 10 people are LGBT, and we aren't necessarily born to LGBT people. Anyone in any family could come out and while many are disowned and abandoned because of it, there are also many people who unconditionally love their children and will change their vote because of that.
Tim Walz has also had some particularly pointed soundbites in response to critics of his progressive policies as governor. His most famous quote right now being:
"What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions."
And on him being criticized for not immediately calling in the National Guard on the George Floyd protestors:
"I don't think the mayor knew what he was asking for," Walz said. "I think the mayor said, 'I request the National Guard, this is great. We're going to have massively-trained troops.' No, you're going to have 19-year-olds who are cooks!"
(He did ultimately call in the national guard on the protestors, and he himself is a national guard vet, and the most left wing people in MN don't really like him for this reason.)
He's also the one who originated the strategy of calling Vance "weird" which has really taken off. He's a candidate who has been going on the offensive a lot, pushing hard on the value of progressive policies. Particularly with his policies protecting trans youth, I suspect that this is going to be a strategy to attack Republicans as well. It's incredibly weird to obsess over the genitals of children and when you push on that you always uncover some, well, "weird" conspiracy theories. Kamala's whole brand is that she's a prosecutor and this is a place where she can go on the attack and make her opponent look really bad.
Given that I correctly predicted we'd be getting a white male Midwestern governor I feel incredibly empowered to make predictions about politics as if that is in any capacity a meaningful action. 
I think what this signals to me is that the Democrats are finally realizing that their problem is not winning over deranged conservatives who have been sucked so far into Trump's character cult that nothing anyone says can convince them to change their vote. They are realizing that their problem is being so boring and centrist that they don't particularly motivate anyone to vote for them and low voter turnout is how they lose. They're clearly trying to energize voters and increase voter turnout by taking a progressive stance that will actually motivate people to believe in them.
Supreme Court term limits and National Rent Control are not happening between now and November. Without a supermajority in the legislature, such strong policies would never pass. And that is the point. They're trying to demonstrate that if you vote for them and give them the mandate to govern with a supermajority, that they will do big bold things like supreme court term limits and national rent control.
Now, this begs a big question of will they? In 2008, Obama made big promises and, once elected with a huge mandate of governance and a control of the legislature, the Democrats instead made unnecessary compromises in the name of bipartisanship. Perhaps they now see that that was a losing strategy, or maybe they're planning on doing that again.
It's entirely politics. You don't convince people to change their minds about you by trying to look like a less agreeable version of what they already support, whether that be a conservative candidate or the same outcome as not voting at all. You convince them by offering a strong alternative to believe in. It's the same reason left wing organizers don't shy away from controversial words like socialism and communism. The point is to be divisive. Sell them something fundamentally different and better. The big question I have is if they will follow through with it.
Here is an article with a lot of information on the track record of Tim Walz. Pretty progressive stuff!
I think this was the right choice. Progressive policies are consistently popular in polls. No matter how much he's been criticized, people in a Midwestern state did reelect him. In 2023, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party controlled the entire MN legislature and passed some of the most progressive policies ever seen in a single legislative session. The dems are going on the offense and that's a refreshing tone change.
I've made it clear that I'm voting for the Harris-Walz campaign because I think it is the most strategic action to ensuring the least damage. It's still a prosecutor and a national guard veteran. They're not going to end the empire and they're not going to end capitalism. I think progressive causes are still worth supporting and I'd rather have a president at the helm who is telling Netanyahu that it's time to end the war and call a ceasefire even if she's not forcing his hand, over a president who would push Netanyahu to fully start WWIII.
And, like, also? It's self-preservation. Call it selfish to vote for the ticket running on protecting my community from a moral panic trying to legislate us out of existence but I don't think it's worth it to choose the noble path of sacrificing my own community so that the candidate who is worse for another community will be elected and cause that community to suffer more in order to send a message to the candidate who I would have voted for that she should have cared more about the community that is now suffering even more. I can't follow the logic there. One candidate is clearly better for everyone, including the continued existence of intelligent life on earth given Climate Change policies which like... yeah idk call me a hippie but if I was going to be a single-issue voter on anything it would be Climate Change since that affects every single person on earth.
All that said, I do not trust or believe in the Democrats. I will never forget when I was a canvas captain for MA Job with Justice and we successfully got enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot for a statewide $15 minimum wage pegged to cost of living and statewide universal paid parental leave—only for the Democrats to rescind the referendum on us without asking our permission and passing through a substantially weaker version of the bill missing several fundamentally crucial components (like pegging minimum wage to cost of living) and which also ended mandatory time-and-a-half pay for service workers on Sunday shifts. The Democrats controlled enough of the MA legislature to override a veto from the governor and there was no reason to compromise on the referendum. The referendum definitely would have won the vote. Democrats are not your friends and you should not earnestly trust them or believe in them. The Harris-Walz campaign is making some huge stances right now and I expect maybe 50% of them will be followed-through on, especially if they don't win supermajority control of the legislature.
It's still the ratchet effect. I am going to vote for the ratchet to stop the cog from turning further right. It would be nice if the Democrats turn it back towards the left but I don't have my hopes up. But this VP pick does give me hope that the ratchet might at least win.
