While many people recognize the hardship of former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 107-day presidential campaign, we seem to forget that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s campaign for vice president was even shorter.
A short campaign is barely enough time to get in the hearts of voters by interviews, get out the vote events and endorsements. A 91-day campaign is hard enough, but since then, he’s been facing challenge after challenge, and he’s not been given the credit he deserves.
Before his race, Walz served in the military for 24 years, going into the service at only 17 years old. He’s been serving his country in different ways since then, improving healthcare for veterans and funding the National Guard, according to a list of his accomplishments by Democrats Abroad.
Despite this, he has been labeled an “unforgivable coward” by veterans featured on Fox News. During his campaign for Vice-President, the charismatic, kind father of two was harassed by right-wing media. That’s something you can expect in a highly polarized presidential race. However, the attacks reached his children.
Walz’s disabled son was mocked for being emotional, when he was simply proud of his dad. An emotional moment of pride and love was called “weird,” as Ann Coulter put it. Gus Walz has a nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD), ADHD and an anxiety disorder. Walz was thrown into the ring and then the media came for his family. It was just cruel.
He handled the loss of the race with class. But he’s not out of the woods when it comes to MAGA supporters’ harassment.
We are in the most politically divisive time that there has ever been. With division like this, political violence tends to follow. And it did.
Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark and their dog were all assassinated in June of this year in an act of political violence. Instead of giving his support after the governor lost a colleague and a friend, President Donald Trump claimed that calling Walz would be a “waste of time.” He went on to call him a “mess.”
He was met with ridicule instead of support, the weight of his state on his shoulders and the president of his own country against him. The president of the same country Hortman died serving as a representative.
On top of this, right-wing media followed the president’s lead in turning their back on Walz. Many went as far as spreading conspiracy theories that Walz had a role to play in the assassinations.
That was only a couple months ago. Just this past week in Minneapolis, there was a school shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, where two children were killed and 18 others were injured.
These are horrible tragedies that Minnesota families have had to face over the past year. As Governor, the responsibilities that come with the aftermath are on him. It seems he can’t escape hardship since his bid for Vice-President. Some having to do with the race, some not. All are horrific and he’s been dealing with it gracefully, despite the odds against him.
Yet, it feels as though no one is paying attention to just how much Governor Walz is dealing with. We see it in the news, but he’s the one dealing with it while being constantly brought down by certain groups of people.
You don’t have to agree with his politics to admit that he is too good a man to have these cards dealt to him, and it’s time we acknowledge it.
