The Middle American Lib

Tim Walz tries to tap into all-American culture to make heartlanders vote Left

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s elevation to the Democratic ticket was the big news last week. Conservatives couldn’t get enough of his stolen valor, support for Black Lives Matter, open border advocacy, and other items perfect for attack ads. 

But none of that dimmed liberal enthusiasm for Kamala Harris’s running mate. Liberals see Walz as the stepdad they wished they had. They like that he seems like an all-American man who shares their progressive values. He’s a guy who can go to the bar and talk about the Vikings’ chances to win the Super Bowl. He’s a veteran (the media can ignore the specifics) and a former high school football coach. He loves to hunt and wear camo hats. But unlike the stereotype for the typical Middle American man, Walz is no bigot. He supports trans rights and Black Lives Matter! He respects women and wants a more inclusive America. 

His defining line is “mind your own damn business.” Unveiled at a rally last week, it quickly became a hit with liberals. It’s a good way to sell Walz’s brand of middle American liberalism. “Mind your own damn business” evokes the folk libertarianism of the hinterlands. Millions of Americans love “Don’t Tread on Me” and are proud of their individual rights. But folk libertarianism usually involves protecting gun rights and telling bureaucrats to screw off. It’s more about preserving rights and values inimical to the Right.

Walz proposes something very different with “mind your own damn business.” Instead of ordinary Americans pitted against liberal bureaucrats, it’s freedom-loving citizens against right-wing puritans who want to impose social standards on them. It’s about “personal choices” (over sexual orientation, abortion, and the like) rather than defending your property rights. Of course, Walz doesn’t really respect personal choices as he mandated one of the most draconian COVID regimes in the country, fully backs gun control, and even wants to suppress free speech. But Democrats hope people don’t get worked up about the details. They want you to focus on the tagline and assume the Harris-Walz ticket stands up for your right to live however you want to live. “Mind your own damn business” is an appeal to the folk libertarianism of Middle America, and it may dupe some into buying it.

This is a different cultural moment we are living in than in 2016 and 2020. Red state culture is almost chic at the moment. Country songs regularly appear atop the Billboard charts. Morgan Wallen is arguably the most popular male singer in America. Several TV shows and movies now celebrate Middle Americans. The most popular example being the Yellowstone franchise. Twisters, the movie of the summer, is another.

The disaster blockbuster lionizes a group of redneck (albeit a very diverse group) stormchasers who dedicate themselves to trying to protect small town Oklahoma from the ravages of tornados. Their foes are a corporate team composed of highly educated outsiders who don’t care what happens to the rural denizens. The male protagonist is a former rodeo wrangler who’s smarter than he looks, and he persuades the female protagonist to return to her rural roots. The film’s country soundtrack reinforces its Middle American appeal. This formula worked as Twisters is killing it at the box office.

This cultural moment is something Democrats want to appeal to with their own presidential campaign. Obviously, Kamala can’t appeal to it. That’s why they’re banking on Walz to be the pitch man here. The campaign released Harris-Walz camo hats and koozies in a brazen attempt to show it cares about heartlanders. The media couldn’t get enough of the gear, with multiple outlets publishing articles on how brilliant the camo wear is. Walz’s unassuming wardrobe is even earning plaudits for demonstrating his alleged appeal to Middle America.

But this is all just camouflage for the real Democratic agenda. Walz is no moderate, and neither is Harris. They’re just trying to put a big belt buckle and a Carhartt jacket on far-left ideas. As governor, Walz allowed Black Lives Matter to destroy Minneapolis while his family members backed the rioters. When he finally called up the National Guard, his daughter shared their positions with the demonstrators. He’s made Minnesota one of the friendliest states to illegal immigrants and “trans rights.” There’s nothing remotely moderate about him. 

But his down-home, everyman style is enough to convince some Americans that he’s just like them. He is the ideal Middle American lib, one that could make the case that a “real man” is a libtard like himself.

Liberal columnists are eager to make this case. One Bloomberg writer argued that Republicans are terrified of Walz’s “masculinity”:

[I]f such a marksman, state-title-winning football coach and regular guy can happily play second fiddle to a Black woman running for president, then what does that say about MAGA’s efforts to reverse-engineer the 21st century? After all, if a middle-aged, heterosexual White guy who likes to hunt doesn’t have to live in constant fear of losing status and doesn’t need traditional gender and racial hierarchies to validate his life choices, then what does he need Donald Trump and JD Vance for?

And thus, the middle-aged, heterosexual White guy who likes to hunt will vote for Harris-Walz. 

Most Middle American men won’t fall for the pitch, but there is a species that will. Best called “sportslibs,” these are men who proudly display their favorite teams in their social media bios and aggressively assert left-wing dogma.  Anyone who has been on Twitter long enough can report how “teams in bios” accounts will rush to condemn any post that seems to contradict progressive orthodoxy. “Bro, it’s weird to be a bigot!” is the general theme of these condemnations. They love players coming out in favor of BLM, LGBT rights, or whatever cause is currently trending. Programmed by ESPN’s liberal biases and advertising, these types stand as some of the strongest social conformists in our society. Anything “right-wing” strikes them as something that gets in the way of the game.

A recent example of sportslib behavior was found in the reaction toward an ESPN analyst who subtly criticized the masculine “woman” boxer at the Olympics. Dan Orlovsky simply tweeted “Protect our daughters” during the controversy over the Algerian boxer. His audience attacked him for the tweet and forced him to delete it. Sportslibs made it be known that there should be no criticism of trans athletes in women’s sports.

Not all sports fans are like this, but a sizable number of them are. Otherwise, no one would tolerate ESPN’s lib programming. These are the guys most susceptible to Walz’s appeal. He upholds their kind of masculinity and shares their values. He’s “normal” and hates weirdo Republicans, too.

Walz is what liberals want men to be. He can be allowed to hunt and have a beer at his favorite sports bar. He doesn’t have to be a soyboy, but he has to subscribe to the same politics. You can only watch the game after you solemnly vow to respect women, uplift minority voices, and check your white privilege. Walz did this, and so should every red-blooded American man.

This is the pitch of the Middle American lib–and it’s incredibly subversive.