Francis Wilkinson: Tim Walz's masculinity is terrifying to Republicans

Since Tuesday, when Vice President Kamala Harris introduced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Republicans have scaled back their initial attacks on Harris’ race and gender. Instead, they have targeted the traditional signifiers of Walz’s masculinity.

It’s hardly surprising. Any liberal Democrat whose resume includes football coach, military veteran and sharp-shooting hunter is a challenge to MAGA mythology, which posits that liberalism and feminism threaten traditional masculinity, so you’d better vote Republican before marauding Amazons take your endangered man card away.

At their packed campaign launch in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Harris lauded “Coach” Walz, honored his veteran status and beamed with pride that Walz “was known as one of Capitol Hill’s best marksmen, winning a bipartisan sharpshooting contest year after year.”

Those traditional manly traits are threatening enough on their own. But if such a marksman, state-title-winning football coach and regular guy can happily play second fiddle to a Black woman running for president, then what does that say about MAGA’s efforts to reverse-engineer the 21st century? After all, if a middle-aged, heterosexual White guy who likes to hunt doesn’t have to live in constant fear of losing status and doesn’t need traditional gender and racial hierarchies to validate his life choices, then what does he need Donald Trump and JD Vance for?

That’s a terrifying question for a Republican ticket that offers little beyond resentment, rage and a promise to restrict the freedom and democratic power of its opponents. It explains why Vance immediately began smearing Walz’s military record, claiming — without evidence, of course — that Walz had “abandoned” his unit when he ran for Congress before the unit was deployed to Iraq.

“Swift boating” is the name given to the organized campaign of lies launched against 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Walz’s 24 years in the National Guard are not the stuff of Kerry’s record of extraordinary courage under fire as a Swift Boat captain in Vietnam. But like Kerry’s heroism, Walz’s military record threatens GOP stereotypes. Swift Boat smears are the prescribed antidote.

Walz’s shooting prowess presents a similar problem. Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper last month, Walz trash-talked Vance. “I guarantee you he can’t shoot pheasants like I can,” Walz said.

Randy Kozuch, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, told the Washington Post that “a camo hat can’t camouflage the fact that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are gun-grabbing radicals who support confiscating firearms from law-abiding hunters and gun owners.”

Kozuch’s “gun-grabbing” claim is ridiculous, given that Walz grabs his own gun to go hunting. But Walz supports popular gun regulations that the NRA opposes, and he does so as a hunter in a camo hat. The NRA, like Vance, has no answer to that because its success depends on making people who look like Walz afraid of people who don’t.

The goal is to generate doubt that Walz is real — or at least a real man. “You have to go back decades to find a politician who can really pull off” the casual, rugged, White-guy vibe, writes fashion writer Derek Guy. Walz, he says, “channels a similar power” to the wood-chopping, horse-riding Ronald Reagan.

Of course, it’s not really about looks. It’s about how voters respond to such cultural signals. University of Pittsburgh historian Lara Putnam, who studies grassroots politics, told me that Walz has the ability to gain traction in rural and exurban Pennsylvania. She cites the example of Democrat and veteran Conor Lamb, who won a special election for Congress in 2018 in a Trumpy western Pennsylvania district. For those who canvassed for Lamb, Putnam said, “Lamb’s military service was the single most important fact for hitting the threshold of consideration at the doors. That’s why the instant and all-out effort at swift-boating Walz’s military service. That life experience and credential is super meaningful there.”

The contest for manliness has been underway since the republic began. A gender gap in voting has persisted for decades, along with stereotypes of the “mommy party” (Democrats) and “daddy party” (Republicans). In the late 1980s, GOP Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah called Democrats “the party of homosexuals.”

Remarkably, more than three decades later, it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear a GOP politician make a similar claim today. The Republican Party, fossilized, regressive, wallowing in lazy bigotry, is pointed to the past. Harris, running for the future, inflames the fears that govern MAGA.

Walz is dangerous to Trump and Vance precisely because he has the capacity to calm such fears. Yet if Harris openly inflames, Walz also subtly indicts. He’s not frightened of women, afraid of Black people or terrified of the future. Why are you?

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.