2024 United States Presidential Election Megathread
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Republicans Are Struggling to Paint Tim Walz as a Villain
Republicans struggle to find an effective line of attack against Gov. Tim Walz, who was picked as Kamala Harris' running mate.
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Republicans Are Struggling to Paint Tim Walz as a Villain
The GOP is scrambling to find a line of attack against Kamala Harris's VP pick — and it's not going well
August 7, 2024
Tim Walz at Temple University's Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Aug. 6, 2024. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Tim Walz has made his debut as Kamala Harris’s running mate, and Republicans are struggling to apply their standard villainization playbook to the Minnesota governor.
Walz has been making waves for weeks now as a good-natured, relatable politician with a particular aptitude for dressing down the Republican agenda in terms that any voter can understand — and the GOP hates it.
Republicans are scrambling to paint the governor-turned-VP candidate as a devilish Marxist hellbent on running the country into the ground — their usual stuff — while leveling a bunch of other really weird attacks. Here are some of their most pathetic attempts to turn voters against Walz.
As they tend to do when they meet someone they don’t like, Republicans quickly centered their attacks on Walz around their own obsession with children’s reproductive organs.
In 2023, Walz signed into law legislation that provided free access to menstrual products “to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12.” The benefit extended to transgender students who used the boy’s bathroom — and some Minnesota Republicans even voted for it.
No one should be required to explain their need for a tampon, but for some right-wing agitators, the legislation was an in to attack Walz.
Others were quick to point out that not only was the bill inclusive to LGBTQ+ students, but access to free sanitary products is also a boon to low-income students and their families, having them in all restrooms ensures they are available if the women’s restroom is out of service, and — as explained by Amanda Bynes in She’s The Man — they’re great for nosebleeds.
In a statement responding to Walz’s selection as Harris’s running mate, the Trump campaign attacked the governor for “embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote,” seemingly forgetting that the former president is a convicted felon whose ability to vote is no longer guaranteed in every state.
It wouldn’t be a Republican smear campaign without a heavy dose of racism. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali-American population in the United States, with more than 86,000 Somali-Americans residing in the state amidst their total population of almost 6 million people.
Republicans falsely accused Walz of changing Minnesota’s state flag to more closely resemble that of Somalia. In 2023, the legislature moved to redesign the flag amid concerns from local indigenous populations that the old flag contained offensive stereotypes about their communities. The redesign was conducted through a public survey and highlights the architecture of the state Capitol, the shape of the state, and its fame as the “Land of 10,000
Lakes.”
The idea that Walz changed the flag to match that of Somalia was also repeatedly highlighted on Fox News.
Trump’s former adviser and anti-immigration hawk Stephen Miller claimed on Fox that Harris and Walsh want to turn “the entire Midwest into Mogadishu” — the capital of Somalia — and attacked the presence of refugees in the U.S.
It’s no shock that Republicans would zero in on a proportionally small migrant community to malign Walz, that doesn’t make it any less gross.\
A wife and two kids? Unthinkable.
The race for the Democratic vice-presidential slot came down to two main contenders: Walz and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish.
According to CNN, Walz was ultimately chosen for a variety of factors, including his natural rapport with Harris. NBC News reported on comments from one Democratic strategist who said that “polling showed Shapiro wouldn’t help that much more than the others,” in terms of winning Pennsylvania. Concerns were raised about his response to pro-Palestinian protests in the state, as well as his public sparring with teachers unions, his handling of sexual harassment claims against his aide, and ongoing questions over an unsolved alleged murder he oversaw as attorney general.
But despite the many factors that influence a VP pick, Republicans were quick to accuse the Harris campaign of antisemitism.
“No Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson wrote on X, to which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, sarcastically responded: “News to me.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed that Shapiro’s Jewish faith was “clearly was a major factor” in the decision and that Harris “was reluctant to put a vice presidential nominee on the ticket with Jewish heritage because they’re having a split in the Democratic Party.”
Shapiro himself dismissed the notion, throwing his full support behind Harris at a Tuesday night rally in Philadelphia. “My faith teaches me that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it. That means that each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said.
In what apparently was an attempt at an insult, Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro attempted to take a dig at Walz by comparing him to another famed Midwesterner: Saturday Night Live legend Chris Farley.
“Meet Tim Walz, who lives in a van down by the river,” Shapiro wrote on X alongside a photo of Walz, referencing one of Farley’s most famous sketches.
The joke didn’t land, with users pointing out that people love Farley, who continues to be one of the most famous American comedians to ever bless the nation with his craft. Shapiro later doubled down in another post, comparing Walz to famed performer Don Rickles.
Funny? Beloved? Fame beyond their generation? You sure got him Ben.
KFBF
Superstar
Public service wasn't a means to get rich for him like most other politicians. Good for him.I dont know if I shouldor
at this information
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Unearthed audio: Trump tells Tim Walz in 2020 he is “very happy” with his handling of George Floyd protests: “I fully agree with the way he handled it... [Tim Walz is an] excellent guy”
(Trump is now trying to criticize Walz over the same issue)
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Unearthed audio: Trump tells Tim Walz in 2020 he is “very happy” with his handling of George Floyd protests: “I fully agree with the way he handled it... [Tim Walz is an] excellent guy”
(Trump is now trying to criticize Walz over the same issue)
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1/1
So it turns out that Trump appointed Tim Walz to the Council of Governors AND donated to Kamala Harris’s AG campaign.
Now he wants to paint them as radical…yet he supported them.
Meanwhile, his own VP pick called him ‘America’s Hitler.’
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So it turns out that Trump appointed Tim Walz to the Council of Governors AND donated to Kamala Harris’s AG campaign.
Now he wants to paint them as radical…yet he supported them.
Meanwhile, his own VP pick called him ‘America’s Hitler.’
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Uncle Baby Billy
All Star
Almost rolled on the floor laughing fromm all of these...dude is so stupid.
en.wikipedia.org
List of nicknames used by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
Mission249
All Star
The way he ignored the inappropriate "They're so weird!" chant then circled back with the "It's about helping not mocking..." comment was perfect.
You can tell he was a teacher cause there's always that kid that takes it too far and you just gotta ignore them then address it without making them look stupid.
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Holy sh*t. This is the Harris-Walz rally in Detroit today
Trump is so fuc*ed
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Holy sh*t. This is the Harris-Walz rally in Detroit today
Trump is so fuc*ed
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They landed that plane right there? ... like they had the people in the hangar and they just pulled up in the plane like that
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Best Black voter focus group I have seen all election season
2/11
Whoooooo he took a risk.
3/11
He was wildin
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Rarely has America been as united as we are in our feeling that this man can’t take that shirt off fast enough…
5/11
6/11
You see those our aunties with a slim/lean frame, they are the real MVP, respekt them!
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Super strength too
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This makes me feel so good. And it's like my family. Whew baby, everything that happened to him would be happening in my fam...times ten.
9/11
Same
10/11
Notice the matriarchal nature of our families. Grandaddy shakes his head and says, “Nope.”
But when Big Mama sees it…
11/11
Granddaddy was my fav
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RickyDiBiase
The Sword of Jesus of Nazareth
Facts.
Really don’t understand how helping people has become a controversial issue in america.
No other rich democratic country does this
Cause a lot of Americans are selfish idiots.
RickyDiBiase
The Sword of Jesus of Nazareth
Yeah it's a common trick Presidents use when running for re-election because its good optics and it shows power and incumbency. Trump did it with Air Force One in 2020. Trump has also done it this current election cycle with his current plane that he calls Trump Force One. Obama did it with Air Force One in 2012.They landed that plane right there? ... like they had the people in the hangar and they just pulled up in the plane like that
Very smart for her use to use Air Force Two for the same reason.
Almost rolled on the floor laughing fromm all of these...dude is so stupid.
List of nicknames used by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
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