I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.
Walz’s elevation earns the left a big victory. Yet because Walz himself isn’t of the left, the pick seems intended to serve a unifying purpose: a candidate who appeals to all different stripes of Democrats for different reasons. The fact that Democrats across the political spectrum seem thrilled by the pick — with effusive support coming from people ranging from Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — seems to validate the theory.
It’s important to be clear: The VP selection matters way less for elections than people think. It’s much more important to select a potential president than an optimal running mate.
But you can see why Harris sees picking Walz as smart politics. It allows her to simultaneously hand the left a win without necessarily tacking left — potentially keeping her coalition united even as she works to win over the general election’s decisive centrists.
I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.
Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.
Just wondering how the heck Walz can be considered “not of the left.” Looking at his accomplishments with universal background checks, free school lunch etc it seems he’s accomplished more left leaning goals than 99% of his colleagues
We are not using global standards, this is a US paper about US politics.
There may be only one or two successful politicians in the entire US who meet the “global standards,” which would make calling him out for “not being of the left” really fucking stupid.
The author is making a distinction between progressive and leftist, and this interpretation may vary from reader to reader, considering in many ways the two views share many similarities. I personally have no issue with the classification, calling his accomplishments progressive or leftist makes little difference to me, but it could be viewed differently by others who may have drawn a line between the two labels. Manchin and AOC rallying behind Walz does appear to lend credence to the idea that he could be a unifying force.
Certainly from a mainstream political standpoint he appears to be fairly liberal with some progressive policies. However, the writer is using the term ‘leftists’ to mean socialists or left-wing “radicals” (whatever that means).
His stance of Israel is really what will be the clincher for leftists, as is the case with Harris. On the plus side, they are both taking a softer line in terms of how they discuss the genocide in public, but of course neither of them would ever utter the phrase with relation to the Palestinians – that would be too radical.
Therefore, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether either of them will break from Biden’s policy of continuing to send bombs and military hardware to Israel, as both are apparently very much in the “Israel has the right to defend itself” camp.
I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.
I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.
Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.
Just wondering how the heck Walz can be considered “not of the left.” Looking at his accomplishments with universal background checks, free school lunch etc it seems he’s accomplished more left leaning goals than 99% of his colleagues
Hasn’t starved enough of his own citizens for the tankies unfortunately
Are you suggesting that the tankies are a big enough voting block to qualify Walz as “not of the left?” Big doubt.
I’m suggesting they’re probably the ones screaming the loudest about people not being left enough
By global standards, the USA has almost zero politicians that would rate as “left”.
The Overton window has been constantly shoved further to the right for decades.
We are not using global standards, this is a US paper about US politics.
There may be only one or two successful politicians in the entire US who meet the “global standards,” which would make calling him out for “not being of the left” really fucking stupid.
The author is making a distinction between progressive and leftist, and this interpretation may vary from reader to reader, considering in many ways the two views share many similarities. I personally have no issue with the classification, calling his accomplishments progressive or leftist makes little difference to me, but it could be viewed differently by others who may have drawn a line between the two labels. Manchin and AOC rallying behind Walz does appear to lend credence to the idea that he could be a unifying force.
deleted by creator
Certainly from a mainstream political standpoint he appears to be fairly liberal with some progressive policies. However, the writer is using the term ‘leftists’ to mean socialists or left-wing “radicals” (whatever that means).
His stance of Israel is really what will be the clincher for leftists, as is the case with Harris. On the plus side, they are both taking a softer line in terms of how they discuss the genocide in public, but of course neither of them would ever utter the phrase with relation to the Palestinians – that would be too radical.
Therefore, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether either of them will break from Biden’s policy of continuing to send bombs and military hardware to Israel, as both are apparently very much in the “Israel has the right to defend itself” camp.
My statement stands.
Good talk.
Edit: no follow ups… guess they didn’t read the article past the headline? :)
Edit 2: they clearly didn’t lol