Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz embodies everything liberal women see in their own fathers – except for their political views. For some, it makes them hopeful but also very sad.

He’s got jokes, enthusiasm and a smiley face that’s not even remotely trying to hide how he’s feeling. He’s Tim Walz- and he’s bringing major Midwestern dad energy to the Democratic ticket.

At least that’s how many white women feel when they see Walz in videos, riding the Slingshot at the state fair with his daughter, signing legislation to give kids in Minnesota free lunches or tweeting about his pet cat.

It’s in stark contrast to what some see in their own fathers - who often have more conservative political views.

“He is silly. My dad used to be very, very silly and goofy,” Pamela Wurst Vetrini, a woman who recently compared Walz to her father, said in a viral TikTok video.

A lot of us had moderate to conservative, educated, sensible fathers that we lost to Rush Limbaugh. That we lost to Fox News. That we lost to Donald Trump. And the cult of conservatism that has grown and grown and grown has driven a wedge between millennial woman and her father,” she said.

  • mokus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 months ago

    Walz is what I imagine my parents would be like if my parents had actually believed the moral lessons they taught me as a kid

    • sep@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The probably did at the time. There must be something in the water, or after effects of leaded gasoline, or something.
      I am from norway so I only see this slow train wreck from the sidelines, but how the heck else can that wierd clown DT have a cult of personality. It boggles the mind.

      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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        4 months ago

        Usually the refrain is “you’ll get more conservative as you get older”.

        What they means is “… as you get more wealthy*”.

        * i.e. as in own their home, retire, etc.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        Propaganda is a hell of a drug.

        Add in a dose of fear, and baby you got a stew goin’

        Turns out 9/11 REALLY broke a lot of people’s brains. Bin Laden would be loving this shit, because it was probably the most effective attack on a nation-state ever.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, 9/11 was such a sea change in how people reacted to the world. It didn’t help that it coincided with the extraordinarily fast explosion of the internet. I knew people who went from just normal people to wishing to turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot. 9/11 was like a light switch that turned people into hate machines, and it happened in 2001 when normal people were going from dial-up to always-on DSL and cable internet so the amplification power of the internet and forwarded emails just turned that hate to 11.

      • Noobnarski@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        This kind of right wing populism has sadly arrived here in Europe as well. Here in Germany we have the AFD which basically does the same thing.

        My mother, her boyfriend and my brother have sadly also fallen into the right wing disinformation trap, it really sucks, its like a thought virus.

        At least I still have my other half of the family whith which I can still have some political discussions where everyone enjoys doing it and its more about smaller details and how to turn the theory into practice.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      This is the thing that gets me the most… I’m like this because of you. Thanks, I guess?

      Maybe they should have been sitting right next to me and paying attention to every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Sesame Street like I did. Seems like they could have learned a lot.

      Or I dunno, maybe I got lucky by not having a rapey children’s (and later, youth) pastor who actually taught valuable lessons while the adults were being radicalized in the main sanctuary (ew, as someone who hasn’t stepped into a church for anything besides weddings and funerals for 20 years or so, just typing that word feels gross).