The Harris-Walz ticket has brought up some big feelings for some Democrats.
Mostly about their parents. Or the politicians they want to elect as their surrogate Mama and Papa.
As soon as Tim Walz was selected by Kamala Harris as her running mate, social media users started casting the progressive in Carhartt and camo as their make-believe father.
“Tim Walz is the dad an entire generation wish they had instead of the one they lost to Fox News,” read one viral tweet by the X user coketweet.
In the Minnesota guv, many see a perfect parental match for Harris — whom Drew Barrymore, in April, begged to “hug” the country.
“I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom,” Barrymore told Harris on her talk show. “But in our country, we need you to be Momala of the country.”
What back then could have been brushed off as Barrymore’s own well-documented mommy issues has now become the overwhelmingly dominant sentiment of the left. Their mission is to elect Ma and Pa America — someone to hug them and soothe them.
A pair to gentle-parent Dems to a better, more virtuous life, and maybe quietly slip them a beer if they’re a good boy or girl.
As Liz Whitmer Gereghty, the sister of Michigan governor Gretchen Whtimer wrote on X: “So it will be a contest between Dems with serious cool parent vibes who would totally pick you up in the middle of the night to get you home safely vs the people they warned you about.”
When did we all become so childish and submissive? We are supposed to be electing leaders who can stare down foreign despots, clean up a crisis at the border, ease inflation and make 15 tough decisions in a day. Not validate our feelings.
This universe of neediness and imagined intimacy reveals the deep delusion of our unhealthy political culture. Elected officials — perfect strangers — are not your family. And your family is way more important than some narcissist with a government pension.
Yet many newly-minted Walz fans are creating fan fiction about their dream daddy.
Tiktok influencer Pamela Wurst Vetrini went viral with a video in which she says Walz “represents the dad that a lot of liberal women lost. A lot of us had moderate to conservative educated, sensible fathers that we lost to Rush Limbaugh, that we lost to Fox News. That we lost to Donald Trump and the cult of conservatism.”
Meanwhile romance novel author Emily Rath cranked out her own seven-minute reel about the feelings Walz stirs in her.
Through tears, she says that her father is a former fighter pilot with a chemistry degree from the Air Force Academy. Yet he “denounces climate change and basic facts about medicine … He is so smart … And to see what politics has done to him.”
In my day, girls with daddy issues became strippers. Now they become insufferable progressive influencers.
Maybe it’s time to call your dad instead of bashing him online.
I understand that many people have replaced religion with politics and practice it fervently. But imagine having a father who is walking this Earth right now, alive and well, and trashing him over politics. Life is too short, family is too precious. Maybe these dads are difficult, but I guarantee these women — hardened ideologues — are too.
Your relationship with your parents was not forged in cable news, so why let it die there? Also, Walz becoming Veep will not heal said relationship.
Much of the media is reveling in this Walz “papa” fest. The Washington Post breathlessly tweeted about a $40 camo hat sold by the Harris/Walz campaign, calling it “a send-up of the Minnesota governor’s trademark Midwestern dad fashion, giving MAGA a run for its money.”
Meanwhile, a Salon story declared, “Tim Walz’s normal dad energy is causing MAGA to come unglued.”
But it’s mostly unglued folks on the left, who are creating familial fantasies about Harris and Walz.
Sure, leaders and candidates can have maternal or paternal characteristics that endear them to us. But to form this parental attachment is creepy. It’s infantilizing and smacks of craving authoritarianism. These leaders ultimately work for you, the taxpayer. Personally, I don’t want any politician from the right or left as my parents.
Though maybe some of these Dems simply want to recreate their childhood, where Mom and Dad paid for everything — but this time on the government’s dime.
After all, as Walz on the recent “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call said: “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
