The opinion of this writer does not align with the view and opinion of the Ridgeview News.
Like the story line of the best adventure fiction, it seemed thatTrump had it in the bag. Gollum still had the ring of power and the forces of darkness were strong.
At the debate, Biden was clearly on the ropes. Trump pummeled him with lies and Biden’s responses were weak, his voice soft. It seemed like the fight had gone out of him.
Then the near-assassination, the convention, JD Vance. Really the convention was lackluster and Vance was a Trump mini-me with a beard, but the Republicans still appeared to be on an upward trajectory to a November victory.
And then, less than three weeks ago, when it seemed too late andDemocrats were despairing, but tiredly urging each other onward, we learned that Biden had the ring – and he was passing it to Kamala Harris.
The crafty old wizard waited until the Trump hoopla peaked and then he went on national television to make a wise and generous announcement – he was stepping down and turning the fight over to a new generation led by Kamala.
The jubilation hasn’t stopped. Hundreds of thousands of new Democratic volunteers. Record amounts of donations. Massive rally crowds.
People across the country who were frightened, but felt paralyzed by MAGA power, suddenly feel strong and confident. No longer scary, Trump is weak, desperate and confused.
In another Tolkien twist, the new Democratic VP standard bearer, Tim Walz, is just a normal, down to earth guy, raised on a farm in Nebraska. Like my neighbors, he knows what it is to do farm chores before breakfast and throw hay bales on the back of a moving truck on the hottest summer days. It builds character.
In so many ways, Walz is like my neighbors here in the deepest red part of WV Trump country. Is it possible that the commonsense views and plain speaking of a former high school coach and social studies teacher might remind some of them of what they too really want from government?
For 8 years, election or not, we have been surrounded by Trump signs, banners and flags. No one takes them down, though occasionally they fade and are replaced. Trump’s meanness, divisiveness, and name calling have taken over county politics.Trump-like leaders have driven too many good people out of volunteering or even speaking, and a few have been harassed until they left the county.
Finally and at last, the Democrats have a leader from an honestly rural background in Nebraska and Minnesota. He drives a 1979 International Harvester Scout that he maintains himself. He hunts pheasants and turkeys. These are not campaign ploys. This is his life.
Walz is a veteran. He joined the Army National Guard right out of high school, served 24 years, rose to the rank of Commander Sergeant Major, and was the highest-ranking enlisted man to ever serve in Congress.
He coached high school football when his team went from 0-27 to the state championship. While he was a coach, he served as the faculty advisor for the school gay-straight alliance because he said, ““It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married.”
Walz is not an Ivy League graduate. He went to college in Nebraska on the GI Bill, got a master’s degree, and taught high school social studies for 20 years. That might be the best training anyone could have for explaining civics and good government to the rest of us.
Walz is not a technocrat. He doesn’t tell you good national economics numbers and say you should be happy. He talks about how he expanded the child tax credit worth up to $3000 per family, expanded public funding for pre-kindergarten and childcare, and guaranteed free breakfast and lunch for every public school child. That’s basic help we need and we understand.
His students asked him to run for Congress after some of them were thrown out of a George W. Bush rally for wearing John Kerry stickers. He won in a red rural district and served in Congress for 12 years, working on agriculture, infrastructure and veterans’ affairs.
In 2018, Walz was elected governor of Minnesota. In 2022, with a slim majority in the state legislature, he signed into lawbroad protections for abortion rights. Since Dobbs, Minnesota is the center for women’s reproductive health care for women throughout the upper Midwest.
Walz reminds us of two great progressive rural Democrats – Jimmy Carter and Bernie Sanders.
He’s Jimmy Carter with a Midwestern edge. Walz and his wife own no stocks or bonds. Their real estate “holdings” were their family home that they sold for $315,000 when he went to the Governor’s mansion. Their retirement is his state pension and their teachers’ pensions. His wife, Gwen Walz, is a career high school English teacher.
In the 2016 WV Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in all 55 WV counties. Yes, there was sexism, but there was also widespread support for Sanders’ programs to help working people, not the rich. Like Sanders, Walz is pro-veteran, pro-union, pro-education, and pro-freedom.
Like Sanders, Walz speaks directly. When people presume to tell you what you can read, who you can love, what you can teach, and what medical procedures you can choose, Walz says there’s a midwestern saying: “Mind Your Own Damn Business.”
Tim Walz will help rural communities across America move past the anger and divisions that Trump has stoked. His authentic voice speaks for the people here. He will help us to start working together to make America work for all of us. Especially Rural America. We are the heartland.
Vote Harris-Walz and give them a Democratic Congress.
