My father raised me to do a lot of guy stuff. I played sports, especially baseball and football. While he stopped hunting when I was little, we did a lot of fishing. He taught me how to drive, how to be responsible, how to be strong, and how to deal …
My father raised me to do a lot of guy stuff. I played sports, especially baseball and football. While he stopped hunting when I was little, we did a lot of fishing. He taught me how to drive, how to be responsible, how to be strong, and how to deal with bullies.
But he also taught me to be respectful of everyone, including women. That was who he was.
He didn't teach me to be an asshole.
Unfortunately, for way too many American males, being an asshole is key to being a man. In fact, among the American right-wing, being an asshole is the epitome of existence.
I can't imagine being a woman and reading and hearing some of the stuff that oozes out of the brains of these guys. It would be alternately infuriating and terrifying, to listen to men like Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and yes, Donald Trump, sell a brand of masculinity that promotes sexual assault, brute force as a solution to all problems, attacks on anyone not a straight white male, etc. as the measure of a true man.
Enter Tim Walz...
Walz is such a great model of positive masculinity.
Hope he shows young men you don't have to follow the Tates or Petersons of the world.
You can be a teacher, a coach, a soldier, a dad and be celebrated and loved for it. Maybe you'll even be president one day.
Back when Walz was a teacher, during a time (1999) when not even Democratic politicians could bring themselves to fully support LGBTQ+ people, he started an organization at his high school to support gay students after one of them experienced several violent threats. This sent Walz down a path to supporting gay rights that put him to the left and well ahead of his own party during the early part of his political career.
Walz was also a football coach at this school. He wears camo hats and hunts and fishes. He was in the military. If you had met the guy, you would not have been out of your mind to assume he was GOP. Might even think of him as a "man's man."
This didn't stop him from being an advocate and an ally to someone outside of his group, who exists in a group that his demographic views with disdain and even has unleashed violent attacks upon. It also doesn't stop him from openly discussing the relationship with his wife as a partnership, and not the master-servant dynamic that so-called "real men" espouse. It doesn't stop him from being a man who is honored to be the second fiddle to a brilliant woman and could care less if you call him a "cuck" for it.
There are a lot of Tim Walz types out there. I consider myself one. Many of my friends are ones as well. We make fart jokes (when it's appropriate around friends) and laugh at It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's rude humor. We have favorite sports teams and maybe even know who played third base for Pittsburgh in 1960. We fuck up sometimes and learn from it. We encounter new things as we get older, witness things "not being what they used to be" and do not automatically treat that as bad and something that is screwing with us. We know how to fix our vehicle's headlights and want to help others learn that so they can also get the benefit.
We also don't actually give a shit if someone decides we're not a real man just because we try to understand the whole pronoun thing and don't sound like a date rapist on Reddit. We do not view Tom Cruise in Magnolia as a role model.
And speaking of role models, young American males are getting the wrong ones from figures on the right. Toxic males like Andrew Tate are influencing boys to the point where they are becoming problems in school. Republican politicians openly support violent tough-guy authoritarian dictators and also support for president a man who was declared a rapist by a judge in civil court. These people are also trying to appeal to young men, even designing a party's national convention around their ideal of "real man = asshole." I do not fully buy into the "young males are going all-in for MAGA" narrative that is taking hold because the data is hazy, but it can't be good.
So, I think it's not just good for Democrats to have someone like Tim Walz. I think it's good for society. He's proof that to be a so-called real man, you do not have to be an asshole.
The last word goes to a man who wore his emotions and his empathy on his sleeve and sang about it in a deep baritone voice.
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