Kamala Harris Courts the Normie Vote

Many Such Takes FREE Special Edition: Walz is in!

I was planning on releasing Part 2 of my “I’m a socially inept weirdo who taught myself social cues” series yesterday, but then of course, Kamala Harris decided to personally target me by selecting her VP: Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota and Totally Normal Guy.

What I find most interesting about Tim Walz is that being a normal guy is kind of his whole thing—in fact, he was the one who started the trend of calling far-right politicians “weird” (who would have guessed that this was catchier and more fun than repeatedly declaring them an existential threat to humanity?) And somehow, despite being an apparently normal guy, he seems to be the favorite of the part of leftist Twitter who is still amenable to voting. Leftist Twitter? Normal? What’s going on?

That’s not to say that he’s won over the entirety of the left. As they like to say, this you?

The part of center-left Twitter that likes Tim Walz took a different position—joking about him being a kind of wholesome chungus type:

After being selected as VP, Tim Walz posted a video where he exited a private aircraft while doing corny finger guns:

People loved it. This furthers my theory (read about it here) that Kamala (and by association, Walz) have basically hit the sweet spot of being dorky and goofy enough that people will make memes and jokes about them (endearingly) because they seem too oblivious to understand the jokes. Thus, they won’t have to force the virality and likability themselves in an effort to appeal to young voters (see: Hillary Clinton telling people to “Pokemon go to the polls.”)

Walz’ policies that are well-known enough to make rounds on Twitter and podcasts tend to center around progressive but unradical things like free lunch for school children and paid parental leave. Right Wing Twitter didn’t have much to make fun of here, especially because Walz has Republican physiognomy. But they did have one thing to mock, which was that he signed a bill which would provide free tampons to students. Get it? Tampons? Vaginas? Tee hee! Anyway, they started calling him “Tampon Tim.”

One also has to wonder about his potential rivals—the Bachelorette contestants who failed to secure the rose.

Although he didn’t make it to the final elimination ceremony, Illinois governor JB Pritzker seemed like a potentially good fit, especially from a very online perspective, given how many quasi-ironic JB Pritzker fan accounts there are on Twitter:

JB Pritzker had an edge since he was inexplicably loved by weirdos on the Internet, but also fairly popular in the real world. He also had the potential to bring in the Giant Guy contingent—I’m not talking only about physically big, but giant in presence (and in some cases also in size.) Think the intense Costco Guys family. Unfortunately, one thing working against him was that he wouldn’t help pull a purple state—Illinois is safely blue. He also happens to be a billionaire, from a long legacy of old money. So for all you Old Money girlies on TikTok, you really should be dressing like this:

Then we have Pete Buttigieg. No offense to Mayor Pete, known derisively by some leftists on Twitter as “Mayor Rat Boy” from 2020 onward (don’t ask), but this was clearly never going to happen. Pete Buttigieg is a great public speaker and manages to gracefully appear on Fox News, but too many people hate him for him to be the choice. I’m not saying they’re justified in hating him—a lot of it is a mix of believing he’s the reason that Bernie is not currently President, and vitriol at a former gifted-kid millennial who owns a home:

The second tweet there was from August 2024, by the way, so I think I’m onto something.

Now, there could very well be other reasons Pete Buttigieg wasn’t selected, related to age, policy or performance. But as much as the Kamala campaign (now the Kamala/Walz campaign) feigns ignorance about being the aunt and uncle doing the doofy Electric Slide dance at the baby shower, they know what they’re doing. They’re clued into the online world, or if they aren’t directly clued in, they are getting guidance from some staffer named Aiden, recently weaned from a childhood of Skibidi Toilet.

Don’t believe me? After Tim Walz became the VP pick, he taunted JD Vance, declaring that he would love to debate him if he “got off the couch” first. This was the perfect remark because it appealed to regular liberals who don’t like JD Vance and took the comment to mean he was lazy or cowardly, but importantly, it was a wink-wink to all the degenerates online who are obsessed with the (debunked but still addictive) hoax that JD Vance fucked a couch.

Now, we can’t talk about potential VP picks without giving a nod to Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, increasingly known as “Baruch Obama” after being accused of doing a long-term Obama impression with Jewish flair (including copying Obama’s dog’s name), while also having the potential to be the first Jewish VP (As an aside: This only makes sense if you are at least part Jewish, or grew up with Jews, but Mike Pence was easily the least Jewish VP we’ve ever had.) As cool as it would be to have the first Jewish VP along with the first female President, we’re already getting a Jewish First Gentleman—one step at a time. Trust the plan.

But anyway, Shapiro was fairly promising—He’s well liked and he won an election against Doug Mastriano, easily the most repugnant right-wing politician ever created (I say “created” because I refuse to believe this man was born anywhere; I’m confident he was generated in some kind of liberal think take opposition research lab.) He’s a great public speaker and would carry a major swing state for the Harris campaign.

There were plenty of considerations against him though—his support for Israel (which would be popular with some voters, and extremely unpopular with others), or the accusation that as AG, he stood by a suicide ruling for a murder case in 2011. Most importantly, we have to consider that he is a grown man with the name Josh:

There’s another key fact about Walz, which I doubt was the reason he was chosen but still worth mentioning nonetheless. His daughter, Hope, was conceived after a long battle with infertility and ultimately IVF. As an IVF parent myself, this makes me like him immediately. This Twitter user had a pretty good take on the effects electorally during a time when many on the Right are going to war against IVF:

And, true to Twitter, he was swiftly corrected by the Lord of the Rings Knowers:

Like this politics article? You might like…