It's an episode of "The Ezra Klein Show." From the transcript, here's the "dad" part:
KLEIN: Let me ask you about political geography. There’s a sense of, particularly, the Midwest as “That’s where people are normal. Then they get weirder on the coast.” You’re a former Army guy, right? You’re a former football coach. You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes. And so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could and also in a way that they’re like, “Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.” But I always think this is a very unhealthy dimension of our politics, a sense that there are sort of “real” Americans here, not “real” Americans there, beyond the coast. I’m curious how you think about this, both from the perspective of what it’s allowed you to say — maybe that would not have landed coming from others — and also just, like, what you do about it.
The emphasis there is on the geography, the "Midwestern" part of "Midwestern dad." I wanted the "dad" part, but I'll soldier on:
WALZ: I started hearing this in 2006 and 2008, where people in the cities don’t know who we are — “We’re real American.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” I never saw it that way. And now it’s just something like this, “You can’t go to Minneapolis.” It’s, “You can’t do this.” Well, the fact of the matter is, when you look at it, you have more population, you have more of these things happening. And there was this desire to just make these undesirable places. They do it to San Francisco. And just to be candid, last week was my first time in San Francisco, and there I am driving around, and I’m like a kid again. I’m like, “America is so awesome. San Francisco is just the greatest.” And that’s the way people would feel. Go out to the boundary waters of Minnesota. Go to Northern Minnesota and look where the mining has happened for a hundred years. These were the beauty of America. And they’ve demonized these places.
The "they" he's talking about is "people in the cities," and I think he means the east and west coastal cities. Supposedly, "they’ve demonized" Minnesota. Walz didn't really pick up on Klein's point, which is that he doesn't like the geographic division. Walz seems to only want to say we've got pretty stuff too. Like the topic is vacations. And have you heard? — He just traveled to San Francisco, and it was really nice.
Klein tries to get Walz on track (and I'm already really tired of Walz and ready to bail (it's not going to be Walz (it's going to be Shapiro, right?)) but let's slog on:
KLEIN: But this is a place I do think where Democrats have failed a bunch of the people that they were hired to help, so to speak....
This becomes a discussion of the policy problems in Democrat-run cities. Nothing about Dad-ism. The headline that caught my attention gave me false hopes that there was going to be something about how the Mommy Party needed a Daddy... some sort of political single-mom problem. We need a mom and a dad... a coastal mom and a midwestern dad.
***
I had a midwestern mother and an east coast dad. What about you? Did you have parents from different geographic places? My mother grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and my father grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. I can't think of any geography-based distinction between them. But Ann Arbor is like Madison, Wisconsin. You're not really in The Midwest, not The Midwest that people like Ezra Klein are thinking about when they say things like "You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes, and so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could...."
It's another way to say normal. To fixate on normal.
Hey, you're normal, you look normal, Governor Tim. Exercise your normalcy privilege and tell us all about how not normal weirdo Trump and his disgusting sidekick JD are.
If you do it right, you can be VP! But you're not doing it right enough, so go back, Governor Tim. Go back to that demonized beauty-of-America hellhole they call The Midwest.
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57 comments:
“You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes.”
Since the left is into code words and dog whistles…. Isn’t this another way of saying middle class, middle aged white male?
“What about you? Did you have parents from different geographic places?”
My dad was the product of a mixed marriage. His dad grew up in the East End and his mom grew up in the West End. If you know anything about Cincinnati, you know the east side/west side divide is a real thing. Or, I should say was. In the last 2-3 decades it seems to have steadily waned.
Heh dave that was amusing
I always understood
normal to mean adhering / adjacent to NORM = a standard
normative to mean assuming/defining a NORM/standard
I would then ask what is the Norm before going any further in.
what about you Professora?
My Father was from Galway and my Mother from Dublin so I guess I'm bi-coastal.
But Ann Arbor is like Madison, Wisconsin. You're not really in The Midwest
It would be nice if we could relocate Madison outside the borders of Wisconsin.
Ezra the JuiceBox Journolist. Waltz is just another fat fuck, complete with a “weird” vibe.
Who is Ellen Greenberg?
Josh Shapiro is finished, and Ezra Klein knows it. Plus I have suspicions that Obama/ Pritzker are sending a signal: make Pritzker VP, or your bland white guy is going to burn.
https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/ellen-greenberg-philadelphia-pennsylvania-murder-suicide-manayunk/
Pritzker VP?
I'd love to see the superficial lefty wine and college educated women vote for that...
But Ann Arbor is like Madison, Wisconsin. You're not really in The Midwest
It's like this in any arrogant college town. Even smaller Universities.
When I was at Eastern IL University in the early 90's (Charleston, IL), the REAL residents of Charleston were referred to as "townies." They were the ones that worked the shit jobs at the University. Janitors. Maintenance. Lawn crews etc...
You see the same theme in "Breaking Away" when the local "cutters" beat all the University of Indiana guys in the Little 500. Same dynamic in "Good Will Hunting."
There is an unjustified, unqualified arrogance in college towns. The attitude oozes from the faculty and the students.
My father was born in midtown Memphis, but my mother was born in Millington in north Shelby County about twenty miles away.
Their family backgrounds were more different by far than their birthplaces.
“Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.”
Hahahah, no.
Supposedly, "they’ve demonized" Minnesota.
They'll take your Electoral College votes, but you're not one of them.
"As a Midwestern dad, are you comfortable with your daughter sharing a locker room or a pool changing room with biological males who say they identify as women?"
Walz has been a terrible governor by any measure. Nominate him!
Walz was born in West Point, NE and grew up in Valentine, NE. Valentine is where I stay when I go canoeing on the Niobrara River.
He went to the third-rate Chadron State College and was a part of the Dem education-industrial complex before he got into politics.
Total loser.
But the Chadron State v. Yale Law debate would be epic.
What has Walz done other than let large parts of Minneapolis burn to the ground?
I, for one, await the nomination of Al Franken as Dem VP candidate, with bated breath. He's still pasty, but rested and ready, for the call to service. Jazz hands for Harris, and the Dems!
I love your prose today.
I think of midwestern Dad vibes as honest farmers raising 12 kids and gambling on good weather. And living in a well stirred melting pot of English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Eastern European immigrants under the blessings of winning all the wars from The French and Indian War onward. Or is it Forward?
My mixture was from English that came on the Mayflower ( talk about weirdos)moving west until the Erie Canal ended in Lockport in Western NY which was home to many a weird religious cult such as Mormons, the Oneida Community and more. But my line were Episcopalians including the 28 year Bishop Frank Sterritt of northern Pennsylvania in Bethlehem.
There was a German Vocalist Professor in Philadelphia that snagged up one of the Sterritt daughters. He was a great singer and she was his student 30 years his junior. They popped out 4 kids one of whom was my mother. Then both died, he from Spanish Flu while mother was en ventra sa mere and she from cancer when my mother was 7. That meant adoption by uncles, 2 apiece.
Anyway that got her down to Atlanta where her adoptive father/uncle was married into elite money. Of course mother sang beautifully at St Luke’s Episcopal Church. And she married an ambitious genius that became the CPA for Atlanta’s oldest wealthy families.
That’s enough. The point is mother was English and Daddy was Scots Irish Donaldson and both descended from pioneer families that lost much in the Great Depression but survived by determination. We carry on. And that’s why we support Trump.
Klein: Hey man, get on the script. "Weird" is for Trump and Vance, not the Coastal Elites.
Walz: But Hillary called us deplorables, yet when I go to San Francisco, it is weird but I kind of like it.
Klein: Yeah, Hillary screwed up, but you don't get we are in 2024. Laters!
Don't think it is Walz, but don't think it is Shapiro either. Shapiro will keep the antisemites at home, and that hurts Michigan and down ballots in blue cities.
traditionalguy said...
I love your prose today.
I think of midwestern Dad vibes as honest farmers raising 12 kids and gambling on good weather.
My great grandfather ! 9 of his 12 kids were boys. But then again, he was Irish. Born in New York, though.
Trump is Meade's Daddy.
Don't think it is Walz, but don't think it is Shapiro either. Shapiro will keep the antisemites at home, and that hurts Michigan and down ballots in blue cities.
Yeah, I don't see Pritzker or Shapiro because of Little Mogadishu in Minn and Little Palestine in MI. Walz is an idiot so they would be well matched. I doubt the people who are running the country would choose him.
Butte, MT (dad) and Kalispell MT (mom). Mining and lumber mills. Irish and German. Catholic and Lutheran. So, yeah, worlds apart.
Both parents from Wisconsin : Mom (Peshtigo) and Dad (Marinette). Moved to Michigan's UP before I was born. Both from large families -- I had 18 aunts/uncles total.
Oh, my name, it ain't nothin', my age, it means less
The country I come from is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there, the laws to abide
And that the land that I live in has God on its side
As a dad, this made me cringe.
A good dad would warn you about Trump
Psychological analysis of Trump by two crazy-eyed dem experts.
Malignant narcissism is diagnosed.
Shapiro brings nothing to the party. Philly can already manufacture enough votes to overcome any Trump lead statewide.
Good dads do not let their major city burn down while they look bewildered.
There's also the question of whether he makes Harris look good in comparison, as Harris did for Biden. Sadly, Walz cannot limbo under that low bar as he can at least look the part and does have high level executive experience, if not particularly successful executive experience. Buttigieg is the emptier suit choice.
Last time I was in San Fran, about a decade ago and way before people started toileting in the streets, it was a miserable, deteriorating city that smelled of mold and decay. Even the rich neighborhoods had a cramped and desperate feel.
Waltz should be disqualified simply because of his inability to evaluate city living. Midwestern boy thinks they've gone about as fer as they can go.
I just can't wait for Democrats to now define what a "Dad" is.
"Democrats need a dad?"
That toad Walz is certainly what they deserve, but it's not what they need.
Who's your Daddy?
Midwestern Democrats have dads.
Strangely (but I guess not so much), Illinois is kind of like my home state of Minnesota in that rich dad's sons somehow become the progressive governors of their states: Mark Dayton (just before Walz) was the son of Bruce Dayton. You don't get richer and better know than that in Minnesota. And J. B. Pritzker is the son of Donald Pritzker (who sadly Died too young) who along with his broader family was about as rich and well know as any family in Illinois.
The Dayton family wouldn't let Mark anywhere near the family business - he was so odd. And I don't think the Pritzker's had much hope for J. B. running Hyatt. So they got him elected governor.
It's kind of like the citizens of Minnesota and Illinois watched the governors of New Jersey and said, "hold my beer".
Bed Sty and a Dickensian orphanage in Rochester.
That's how I got all that white privilege.
Gary Trudeau modeled Michael Doonesbury after Mark Dayton, whom he knew at Yale in the 60s.
Uncle "Daddy" Samanthuel
Dems like their sugar daddy. Just ask Kamala about hers.
Of course you Wisconsinites had to be different, didn't you? You passed on the opportunity to have Mary Burke, daughter of Trek founder Richard Burke, elected as a progressive governor of your state a few years ago. Not sure if she's hanging around Trek or not, but they are wildly screwing up that company now - even though I own two of their bikes.
Dad was a north central Iowa farm boy, though he did attend Iowa State for a couple of years prior to joining the Army in about 1942.
Mom was born and grew up in British India. Her parents were missionaries there in the late 1920s (my folks were older than most when I was born) but they returned to the US when she was about 9 and her dad served churches in central Illinois.
They do it to San Francisco. And just to be candid, last week was my first time in San Francisco, and there I am driving around, and I’m like a kid again. I’m like, “America is so awesome. San Francisco is just the greatest.”
Driving around SF is no joy. Bumper to bumper. Aggressive pedestrians. Cars and trucks double parked. Incompetent drivers.
He should have left out the "driving" lie and stuck with "visiting".
Walzing Fatilda or Porcine Pritzker?
Both have a fat chance.
My mother grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and my father grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. I can't think of any geography-based distinction between them.
Because they were open minded people? I have met a lot of Midwesterners who believe anyone who doesn't do it the way they did back in Nebraska or Michigan or Indiana or Ohio is not "normal". Those are some of the most closed minded people I've ever met.
Today's Democrats are much more about Dadaism than they are about dads, especially "real good Midwestern" dads.
I don't think it will be Walz, but if it happens, he will be the Cheney to W.
"Democrats need a dad"
Lots of them do.
Wisconsin is like Minneesota, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon, and Washington (and other states but these I know). They consist of large swaths of rural and small to meditum town areas largely populated with normal, sane people. Then you have major metrtopolitan areas which have always been left of the country folk. It used to be economics, mostly, but now all the cities have gone batsh*t insane.
I can't imagine this ever being solved (achieving something stable) witghout one side dominating. And if the left dominates, it can't possibly be stable because their only objective is to keep briaking things that might be in the way of any kind of silly notion that crosses their minds.
"it can't possibly be stable because their only objective is..."
to continue to grow the government. Because that is where all the freebies come from.
Right?
Walz is my gov. The MN State Bird is the loon. Walz fits.
He is at heart a mean, contemptuous bully. MN dems won the Trifecta last election - House, Senate, and Gov - and so they've been passing a huge pent-up Dem wishlist that they've been drafting for a decade or more. MN is going to implode soon.
And Walz's only claim to fame is that he happened to be Gov at a time when he could sign the bills that the Dem-Socialists drafted and passed.
He is not a particularly smart man. He is not a particularly hard worker. He would fade into the woodwork were he VP. Which might be a good thing.
My mom was born in Brooklyn* (IA), which is central Iowa..
My dad was born in NE iowa. (Jackson County)
So their lives were as different as could be.
Brooklyn* I was about 10yrs old before I realized that the Brooklyn they talked about on TV wasn't near Victor
"The 'they' he's talking about is 'people in the cities,'" I read this completely differently. I read "they" as "people who shit on cities".
How I parsed his paragraph:
WALZ: I started hearing this in 2006 and 2008, where ["they" say] people in the cities don’t know who we are — ["they" say] “We’re real American.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” I never saw it that way. [I.e., I never saw it as Midwesterners are real Americans and cities suck.] And now it’s just something like this, ["they" say] “You can’t go to Minneapolis.” It’s, “You can’t do this.” Well, the fact of the matter is, when you look at it, you have more population, you have more of these things happening. [This sentence is a list of positive things about cities.] And there was this desire [by "them"] to just make these [cities] undesirable places. They do it to San Francisco. [I.e. "they" demonize San Francisco.] And just to be candid, last week was my first time in San Francisco, and there I am driving around, and I’m like a kid again. I’m like, “America is so awesome. San Francisco is just the greatest.” [I disagree with "them"—cities, particularly San Francisco, that most demonized city, are great!!] And that’s the way people would feel. [People used to not demonize San Francisco?] Go out to the boundary waters of Minnesota. Go to Northern Minnesota and look where the mining has happened for a hundred years. These were the beauty of America. And they’ve demonized these places. [I do think it gets murkier here, maybe he's saying there's mutual demonization, which is probably true. I think this part most supports your reading, but I think he's pretty clearly saying cities like San Fran are great, and also Northern Minnesota is great.]
Democrats need a good old fashioned kick in the ass.
What a promising duo. Waltz can promise to do for America what he and the Floyd riots did for MN and Harris can promise to do for America what her policies have done for California. San Francisco and the Downtown of Minneapolis are perfect showcases for Progressive governance.
Perfect.
We all need a dad till we’re about 18. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later mebbe 20. I’ll give ya 20. Cause I’m soft.
Northern Minnesota is great???
That's the land of blonde haired blue-eyed Scandinavians. Wotta racist!!!
Is regionalism still a thing in today's Democratic Party? The younger Representatives seem to come out of a cookie-cutter, different colors certainly, but not all that different in their opinions and backgrounds. Walz is different because he didn't have an elite education, but a repeat of 2016 -- Superwoman Breaking the Glass Ceiling and her loyal retainer, Dim White Tim -- wouldn't offer America much of value.
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