this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
870 points (97.7% liked)

politics

20576 readers
4709 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate, has suggested he may run for president in 2028.

Reflecting on the Democrats’ loss to Donald Trump and JD Vance, he admitted: “A large number of people did not believe we were fighting for them in the last election – and that’s the big disconnect.”

Walz said his life experience, rather than ambition, would guide his decision.

Though his VP campaign was marred by gaffes, he remains open to running if he feels prepared.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 123 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Him calling the GOP weird was not a gaffe but the campaign made him walk away from that language because it might offend potential turncoats. The fact he is internalizing the criticism worries me.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 55 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (4 children)

My only "problem" with the weird-comments were that they were overused. While it is certainly true, and Waltz had every reason to call it out, supporters often kept repeating it in the context of "look how triggered Republicans are by this". After a while it gave me the same vibe as people shoehorning "let's go brandon" into every situation.

[–] Photuris@lemmy.ml 53 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

My only problem with the “weird” verbiage is that it was far too soft.

The GOP is far beyond “weird” and well into full-blown Fascist territory.

But we wouldn’t want to “alienate” anybody by speaking facts!

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 47 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

But the thing about the "weird" verbiage is that it pissed them off way more than the harder insults. Especially if you phrase the accusation correctly.

For example, here's a good response to a MAGA shitting on trans children, "it's really weird that you care so much about children's genitals."

It's because they don't have a defense for it. They can do mental gymnastics for the harder stuff pretty easily because those terms are in black and white. Weird is a very grey area term, and they have to explain why the behavior is normal.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 27 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

They can do mental gymnastics for the harder stuff pretty easily because those terms are in black and white. Weird is a very grey area term, and they have to explain why the behavior is normal.

They also spend most of their time trying to argue that their political party is on the side of normal; so they find it very necessary to discuss at length how normal they are which only makes them look weirder.

It really was an effective line of attack. I guess that's why it had to be jettisoned in favor of parading around with Liz Cheney.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 20 points 18 hours ago

Yeah, but they don't care if you call them fascists. Calling them weird made them freak out, because not fitting in is what makes fascists target you next

They all think "if I were in charge of the world it would be great, and they're all just like me! We just have to get rid of a few problems mucking up the works"

Weird works because if they were looked into even slightly, they're creepy as hell. They've got all kinds of SA allegations, say creepy things they've been thinking about kids, and they go around accusing others of their kinks

They can shake off being called a Nazi, you could bring up their rape charges, but none of that matters

It's vibes based, so you have to question their vibes before you can apply logic

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The point was it was something you could say to someone in real life to let them know those political positions aren't okay, without getting their defensiveness up. Just, "I dunno man that seems weird to me, want another beer?"

[–] Photuris@lemmy.ml 11 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I guess.

Then again, I’m done “having a beer” with these cousin-fuckers, so

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

Yeah, but there's a lot of people that were on the fence. And being social creatures we usually tend to float things with our friends to check the vibe. There's no point in sharing a beer with a die hard MAGA supporter but your union buddy who is getting seduced by talks of lowering regulations?

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 19 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

After a while it gave me the same vibe as people shoehorning “let’s go brandon” into every situation.

Except that....worked?

One of the takeaways from the 2024 election is that if you have something that works, repetition is key for the idiot American electorate.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 21 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, interesting how the Harris campaign had all the momentum after the Waltz nomination, then pivoted back to neoliberal wonkiness and then crashed and burned again.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 12 points 17 hours ago

It was her perpetual problem too. She'd start out with energetic support for progressive policies, get momentum, and then a few days later (presumably after talking with advisors and donors) clarify that actually she didn't mean it and what she really wanted was strictly limited neoliberalism. It's why she failed in the 2020 primary and I wish she learned something from that.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 3 points 14 hours ago

When you're trying to get a political movement going, there's no such thing as an overused slogan. The fact that it was getting used so much was evidence it was working, and part of that was because it got at the right in the same way that they try to other minorities

context of "look how triggered Republicans are by this".

If you want to shake the cult's faith in their cult leader, then yes, you want to trigger them. They're triggered because they sense the loss of innate, automatic strongman support.