It Could Happen HereRobert walks Garrison through an abridged political biography of Tim Walz.
Alone Media Welcome back to It could Happen Here?
A podcast about Tim Walls, And in this episode, Garrison and I are going balls to the Walls. Are you happy with that? Garrison?
What's skivitying your Biden?
What does that even mean?
All right, let's get going some fucking.
Ging z bullshit Garrison, because I won't take part in it.
Yeah, I'm excited to hear about how Walls is either great or terrible or probably a mix of both.
Yeah, he's I mean, he's a politician and a pretty successful one, so it's definitely got to be a mix of both. For jd Vance, I figured the most relevant thing to do is to talk about, like what does he actually believe and where does he come from in the right, because people had gotten pieces of that, but I feel like unless you put it all together, it's not as useful. So I hope we did that with Walls. He's not a guy where if there's anything sinister for you to know, So I think the useful thing is kind of going through his whole political biography and just kind of talking about like what is this guy done in his public life? Right? That's kind of what I wanted to do here. So that people actually know, you know, whether or not you are making your mind up about whether or not to vote. You're voting for harm reduction, you're anti electoral. Here's this guy who may or may not wind up being the vice president, and here's what he's actually done in the past when he's had any kind of power. It's worth noting that kind of at this point here Walls is maybe the most popular politician at his level in the country. This has happened very suddenly, but he's got something like can a plus sixteen net favorability among moderates, which is insane.
Yeah, that's a lot.
Yeah, it's it's wild.
As someone who's looked at a lot of the favorability ratings the past six months, Yeah, that is astonishingly high, especially got pared to where we were like two months ago with Skibbity Biden, which was.
Yeah, very low, quite dire. He's incredibly popular with the normies because basically every everyone in the country has positive memories of a guy like Tim Walls, like whether it was like your favorite social studies teacher or your dad. There is like a kind of rotund, balding, very mechanically capable man, probably somewhere in your life that you have fond memories of and walls dredges those up.
We are of a very Freudian country.
Yes, for an idea of how like rapidly people have gone from not really knowing who this guy is to loving him. On August eighth, a Ugov survey should him with a net favorability rating of plus eleven, which was up from plus one, and a survey conducted in late July in the same timeframe, jad Vance has seen his approval ratings steadily drop.
Yeah, isn't he like at like negative points?
Oh? Yes, yes, yes, by any stretch of the imagination, at negative points. And if you're just kind of looking at Tim's life, which we're not really getting into because we have limited time here and it's not the most important thing I thought we could be talking about. But he has a long history of doing decent things in his personal life kind of most notably in the early nineties, like ninety three to ninety four, he sponsored the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at his high school. And his reasoning was that, you know, he was a soldier in the National Guard and the football coach at that point, and he decided you know him sponsoring the club in particular would have the biggest impact, and I honestly I think that's the kind of thing that might have saved lives. Yep, good thing to have done. Anyway, this isn't an episode about his life and background. We're not going to litigate. We're not going to always any time litigating the attacks on his military career, which seemed to confusingly say that after extending his time in the Guard by four years to participate in Operation during Freedom, he owed his soldiers staying on even longer to fight in Iraq. I could make the point that no grunt in any US war ever found themselves in the shit and said, boy, I wish the commands Sergeant major was here. But given that JD Vance was played onto stage at the RNC to a song with the refrain we got to get out of Iraq and take our country back, I just don't think these attacks are worth acknowledging it. All right, the right has already acknowledged that was a stupid war to fight in walls decided not to fight in it. Good for him now when it comes to the current war that is on everyone's minds or one of the wars that's on everyone's minds. Walls is fine on Ukraine, but when it comes to the war that he's not fine on the genocide in Gaza. Walls is in no way that I can find really better than Kamala Harris. But he did take a stand against the Iraq war back when that mattered, which is I guess a little bit of a point, but again doesn't really matter today and in any case, we're far afield from the subject, which is what has Tim done in politics. So Tim's political career, he came late in life to that. He was a social studies teacher. For a couple of decades he was a coach. He lived in Nebraska, then moved to Minnesota, and in two thousand and six, after retiring from the guard he was elected to Minnesota's first congressional district. Now this was a tough campaign. His opponent in this race was a six term Republican incumbent, Gil Gutneckt.
Wait wait wait wait, good Neckt.
Good Neckt. I'm guessing his family were knights, and it was used to be like good Knight or something like that, like gut k n Eca. But I don't know enough about ancient German to tell you if that's really where his last name came from. Yeah, yeah, But Walls came in that he kind of goes against this guy who had promised not to run for another term and then decided, actually, I don't want to give up power. Not a thing that's ever happened again. And Walls kind of came in both when this guy had violated his promise to not run again and near the peak of disillusionment and exhaustion with neo cons Right, this is kind of the twilight of the Bush years. Even conservative Americans are pretty fucking tired of the Republican Party right this second, and Walls exhibited a notable ability to connect with rural Americans who mostly voted red. He did so with basically no funding or larger national operation behind him. From a write up in the New York Times, he had no money, no nothing, said Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who that cycle worked on House Democrats recruitment team under their campaign chief Rama Manual. He had a grassroots campaign that he had put together that I just knew was going to be Dynahite. So I went back and I told Rom Emmanuel this guy's going to win. He's great, and rom looked at me like I was crazy. Walls was a dark horse candidate and would claim around that time that his whole inspiration for getting into politics was when he tried to take two students to a rally for President George Bush and they were kicked out because one student had a John Kerry button. Now I found a blog by the Republican staffer who kicked them out where he admits he made a dumb call. He was kind of trying to be a dick. He had seen Walls out protesting against Bush like the day before, and he knew he was going to kick them out of the rally, but he made them stand in line for a long time before he kicked them out, and he was like, I shouldn't have done that. But his angle was that Walls wanted to get denied and kicked out so that he could make a big deal about it and use it as a line on the campaign trail. That's probably what happened.
Regardless, This is a very funny little domino leading to big domino.
Everyone likes Walls who tends to meet him. Joe Biden, for the last year or two has seems been trying to get him to do Morbons with Walls just because he put Biden in a good mood. I think that's a big reason why Kamala picked him. He just seems to be a very likable guy. But he's very okay with lying to get what he needs. I mean, he's a politician.
He's a politician.
Another good example of this would be his duy. Right when he was thirty one, he got a duy, and he is at times claimed basically that's why I decided to like, I stopped drinking, I changed my life, I moved, you know, I got my shit together. But his campaign manager made a statement recently, Oh, he wasn't drunk. He just couldn't hear the cop. I don't know who to trust, politician or cop in this case, but the CoP's attitude is like, well, I would be fine if he had just like fixed his shit up. But he definitely was drunk. And I don't have any trouble believing that a man in rural Nebraska, a football coach in rural Nebraska, drove drunk once.
Right, No, that is not the most surprising thing in the world.
So I think he's a guy who's certainly he's not naive political actor, right, He's not one of these guys who's so so good and pure that he's not willing to like fudge in order to make shit work for him. And that's probably what he did at this Bush event right now. That said, it would be hard to overstate what a difficult task he picked for himself and trying to unseat Gutneck. At the time that Walls ran, Minnesota's first district had been held by one other Democrat in the last hundred years, so he was the second Democrat in a century to win in that district, and as soon as he left, by the way, a Republican took back over. During his six terms in Congress, he was one of the more interesting legislators in the country. Walls was a risk taker, supporting liberal votes on major issues even when he was politically vulnerable. He opposed Republican legislation to make doctors vulnerable to criminal penalties for performing abortions. He supported a climate cap and trade bill on greenhouse gas emissions that failed, and this really pissed some folks off. He supported the Affordable Care Act, and kind of one of the more notable things about him is there's stories of when he was running for reelection, he would do town halls in southern Minnesota and he would get attacked by these red voters who had supported him early on for backing the Affordable Care Act, and rather than like backing off, he would lean into it and argue with them and try to convince them. And you know, his numbers with conservative rural Republicans got worse and worse every cycle basically, so you could argue how good he was, but it is worth something to me that he didn't back off, he didn't do the well this might, you know, fuck up my chances of re election. Like he's never really been that kind of guy. There's things that he believes and he will just kind of like jam his flag into the mud over them. That said, Tim was a pragmatist. He voted for a resolution calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within ninety days, but when that failed, he voted in favor of continuing funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim also received an a from the NRA during much of his time in office, voting against gun control based on what seemed to be a natural inclination to firearms and hunting. Walls may have been the best shot in the Minnesota National Guard during the time when he was there. He's apparently a very good shot. He is an avid and skilled turkey hunter, and if you talk to people who want game in the US, turkey is one of the more difficult game to hunt. He developed a reputation as a guy who wouldn't apologize for voting with Liberals, but who would go across the aisle when it mattered. During his time on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which he ultimately chaired, he voted with Republicans to make it easier for the VIE to fire employees, even with union opposition, and he also pushed through changes to improve GI Bill college access for veterans post nine to eleven. One of the things I find interesting about his record is that in twenty eighteen, he voted against most of his party opposing an overhaul of the VA healthcare system. He agreed everyone agrees that the system needed to be overhauled, but he argued the proposal in place would force the VIA to cannibalize itself, basically starving the organization to try and fix it, and his attitude was, well, it needs to get fixed. I'm not going to vote for a change that might be worse than what we currently have. While chairing this committee, Walls made strong connections to Nancy Pelosi, who like basically everyone really came to like Walls, and she's going to be one of the people who's one of the strongest voice is for picking him as VP. And we will be back to talk about more of that. But first, Garrison, you know who else loves Nancy Pelosi?
Probably these products and services. If they come from San Francisco.
They're based in the Bay Area. She will break their kneecaps if they don't like her enough. Ah, and we're back. So one of the big shifts for Tim during his time in Congress was away from the NRA. This started after in twenty seventeen, after the Las Vegas mass shooting, and then after the Parkland mass shooting, and then in February of twenty eighteen, he writes an op ed supporting what he calls common sense gun reform and donates the NRA contributions to his campaign that cycle to some sort of I think gun control cause. Walls's common sense gun regulations include an assault weapons ban, and he's currently in line with the Democratic Party on that, if you were curious. That same year, twenty eighteen, he launched his campaign for governor of Minnesota. By this point, Walls had bled much of his ability to win rural red votes. It is accurate to say he was only really good at this during his early years in Congress. His margins grew a lot narrower over time, and once he hit the governor's office, his support was largely in the cities. Now it's one of those things where I think there's been debate, like some people have arguable he's not maybe not the best VP pick because he actually isn't all that good at getting these red rural votes. But I just don't see that as where the elections coming down to. Walls has great favorables with like suburban white people and particularly suburban like moderates, and that is like one of the most important demographics to win. So I don't believe the fact that he's he's kind of bled his support with rural conservatives is really necessarily a mark against him in an electoral sense. One thing I do appreciate about Walls is how direct he is to people. I dislike. He decides in twenty eighteen to run for governor, and during that run, he has a meeting with a bunch of business leaders at a luxury hotel. The president of a machining company asks if Walls felt corporate taxes hurt workers, and Walls replied, we're not taxing people, We're taxing corporations. And I want to quote from a CNBC write up for Jeff Baker, it was a bit of an O shit moment. That's not what I wanted to hear, said Baker, president of McFarland truck Lines. There's a lot of stories like that. He's been very willing to tax the wealthy and to tax corporations to pay for things like children's lunches. This is a consistent Walls move and it's something that he absolutely is unapologetic about, and I think that's fine. Minnesota currently taxes corporate income at nine point eight percent, the highest rate in the nation. Walls did not back down on this during his time in office. In fact, that CNBC report found that quote Walls's policy battles have a common theme. Walls supported either higher taxes on the rich or businesses, and corporate leaders fought back. One of their fights was over a one percent ser tax on passive investment income over a million dollars. Another was a tax on the wealthy Walls signed into law that limits standard and itemized deductions for households with gross incomes over two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Due to Republican control of the legislature, Walls's first term was not hugely eventful up until the COVID nineteen pandemic. This is because Republicans retained control of the state legislature and were able to stop much of his plan perform. We did get to see more of the politician Tim Walls during COVID when he stood up against Republican resistance or common sense pandemic safety regulations. He earned a lot of hate from the right for some of the more extreme COVID restrictions in the country, which were put in place in Minnesota. In particular, Walls threatened citizens with up to ninety days in jail during the shelter in place period and threatened twenty five thousand dollars fines for meeting in public. Minnesota instituted a COVID hotline where people could inform on their neighbors if they saw rules being broken. And I get why the right is uncomfortable with this. I'm not fully comfortable with this kind of stuff either, But given what was going on at the time, I'm not going to slam the man for trying to save lives in a very uncertain and desperate situation. You know, it beats the nothing that a lot of state governors did, so I guess that's kind of where I stand on that shit. Not long after the pandemic lockdown started, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. Walls mobilized the National Guard after three days of riots, earning praise from President Trump on June first, who said what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened quickly. And this is you know, the National Guard do a lot of very violent shit coming into crackdown on these protests. I know a lot of people who were the ones cracked down upon. It's one of those things where, yeah, he's a governor, you know, I think pretty much any governor in this situation would have sent in the National Guard in that sort of situation.
Especially after the burning of the Third Precinct.
Especially after the prison got burnt, which doesn't excuse it. It's just like, well, yeah, he's not He's not an anarchist, right like, he's not your communist like revolutionary hero. He is the governor of Minniso. So I'm just really not surprised that this happened. It's, you know, a pretty normal thing for a guy in his position to have done. Yeah. Now, like every other dim in creation. During the height of the uprising, Walls voice support for a wide host of police accountability reforms. He even voiced some degree of support for Indian qualified immunity, but this did not last long, and as the backlash against police reforms swelled up after the election, Walls joined many ims and pulling back and even quashing moves for greater police accountability. When he ran for reelection, he did so as a tough on crime, law enforcement friendly democrat. Right many such cases. Now, he did push through some accountability measures. He used fifteen million in COVID funds to pay for grants for community violence prevention. He pushed through some requirements to increase data sharing from the Police Licensing Board. He pushed through a demand for state law enforcement to share footage of police killings with the family of the victim within five days. These are, I think we can all say, minor accountability moves, very very minor, very minor, he said. Of these moves, they build trust in police, they build trust in the systems, They build trust among communities, and they provide the community with some basic closure and understanding for families. Nothing builds trust like a video of your cousin getting shot in the back.
Yeah. If the biggest accountability thing is that you get first look at the murder video.
I don't know, Okay, I like, yes, I do think you probably have to legislate that, because otherwise police just won't give it up at all. But like, yeah, I wouldn't hang my hat on that.
It is ignoring the main issue at play, Yeah, which is the fact that we have murder right videos. It's like, come on now.
There were some bigger reforms, including limitations on no knock warrants, although again not like a ban or anything, but it lacked a lot of the stuff that activists in the state had pushed forward, including limits on police stops of motorists, and Walls had agreed that there needs to be more movement in this direction, particularly after the murder of Philando Castile. It also left out and asked for end to the statute of limitations for wrongful death cases against officers. Walls had personally voiced support for a ban on officers with white supremacist gang affiliations, but this was also left out. Ultimately, State Rep. John Thompson said to Walls at the time, you have the power to do something, and all I've been getting from your office is lip service. And I mean that we don't need a news conference from you, governor. We need a leader. So you're not gonna get a lot of police reform under Tim Walls. That's just a pretty consistent reality of the guy that said he can be forced to do some things if you scare him enough. So you know, keep that in mind. I guess first, keep in mind these ads, and then we'll talk about the environment and stuff, which is a happier story for Walls. We're back. So Walls ran for re election under the slogan one Minnesota, and he managed another solid victory. Up to this point, you would say he'd been a pretty standard dim governor in a swing state. But something happened in the twenty twenty two midterms that changed the course of Walls's career in maybe the nation, the Democrats won a slim majority in the state legislature. As David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamlin University, told CNN, Walls's message immediately jerked away from one Minnesota to damn the torpedoes and fuck the Republicans quote. That agenda included codified protections for abortion access, restored voting rights for felons who've completed their sentences, driver's licenses for people regardless of their legal status, a state child tax credit, free public college for families making less than eighty thousand annually, protections for gender affirming care, a paid family and medical leave program. Walls signed legislation to move the state towards achieving one hundred percent clean energy by twenty forty and to establish a universal free school meal program that provides breakfast and lunch. And that is a real solid spate of shit for a governor to get done. And all of this is about in a year, right, Like most of the shit that Walls has gotten done as governor has been very recently because the Dims had just taken back control, right, and it's very narrow control. Amy Koch, a Republican and former Minnesota Senate majority leader, said Walls definitely had not governed like a moderate, and, unlike other governors with trifecta control, had not emphasized in making deals with Republicans. Everything that went forward was signed. She said, I'm not sure what that says about him, but it definitely puts a dent in his argument that he's just this moderate Democrat from the Midwest. And this is why progressives, many of them, are excited about Walls, is that when he actually had the opportunity, he was willing to say, fuck the Republicans, let's get some shit done. I don't care that we only have one vote right now. Walls has stated that, in his opinion, political capital exists to be spent improving people's lives, and this is an area where you can say that he's put his money where his mouth is, right. This is how he actually governed now, it's worth noting. Obviously, he also promised to burn political capital on major police reform, and he gave that up. So you know, the fact that he says he's going to do something like any politician, not a guarantee it's going to happen.
Well, and some of one of the more kind of upsetting things but not surprising things is now that Kamala has basically secured the nomination, she has ruled back many of the progressive policies that she ran on in twenty twenty when those seemed to be more popular. Right, you know, that's not necessarily Walls, that is that that's Kambala. But but they're running on the same ticket. And again, like, it's not surprising that she's not advocating for medica for all now that she is the actual nominee, right, but it still is, you know, disappointing for people who are like, hey, her actual policies four years ago were actually relatively progressive, and now they are slightly more kind of in line with like the mainstream Democratic Party views on you know, most of these issues.
Right. And again one of the reasons, maybe for a little bit of hope, is that Walls has not really been that guy during his time with the executive power, right, and kind of the area where he's been best maybe actually is climate change. Right, This is the thing Dim seemed to like to compromise on the most. And Tim's history here is interesting to me, particularly because he's got. He doesn't have a perfect record, but it's genuinely pretty positive. His major achievement was a policy passed in twenty twenty three that required Minnesota to have a carbon free electric grid by twenty forty. Now this is the kind of legislation that could just be virtue signaling, but Walls didn't just say yep, we'll get it done by twenty forty when I won't be the fucking governor anymore. He backed it up by approving a historic amount of state spending on energy. The legislation included rebates on climate friendly technology like air source heat pumps and electric vehicles, as well as spending to improve home insulation and one hundred million dollars for city extreme weather preparedness. Walls also signed a bill to cut red tape for wind in solar farms and transmission lines, and the speed up permitting for infrastructure needed to replace colon gas plants. So it was not just a yeah, we'll definitely do this. It was a well, there's certain things that need to happen for this to be possible, and I am going to work to make it easier to do those things. I'm going to make sure that we're passing legislation that makes it easier to do those things, and that that shows me someone who sees this as important as not just a thing that's virtue signaling, but as we need to figure out what the actual concrete steps are to make this doable, and that's something that gives me a little bit of hope. The more questionable side of his environmental history is the Inbridge Line three pipeline, which he and state regulators approved in twenty twenty. This angered a lot of local environmental groups and several indigenous tribes in the area. The pipeline was argued to be necessary because the old one was corroding and a spill risk, and of course, when the new pipeline was constructed, workers punctured multiple aquifers. This seems to have been a case of Walls being the politician that he is. Trade unions supported the project because jobs, and it's also worth noting this is twenty twenty, so the dims do not have a majority in the legislature, and there's just a lot less of a stick available to Walls at this point. So you know, maybe he would have ruled differently, or maybe he would have acted differently, you know, have been in a more friendly situation.
Yeah. I reported on this back in twenty twenty one. Yeah, we did a two part series on Stop Line three where I traveled to the pipeline. Yeah, like it's not surprising, especially with pressure from trade unions to approve this pipeline. From what I've seen, he did not have much to do with the police crackdown on protesters. I've seen that alleged, and I'm not finding much to back that up. There's a lot of like county sheriffs and other task forces working directly with the pipeline company, Like you know, Walls never used National Guard against these people. I don't see much from him being personally involved in suppressing these protests beyond the fact that he's the governor, Like he's the top guy in charge. He could shut that all down if but he also doesn't need to be like actively involved for that to happen, right. Police will do it themselves, right, And that seems to be mostly what took place.
Yeah, that seems fair to say.
And most of the extreme charges that Stop Line three protesters were getting, like a felony theft for locking down onto construction equipment mostly have since all been dismissed in the courts or at least taken down to a lower and more appropriate charge.
Yeah. So again, like with everything about this guy, he's not perfect. He's not without some fucked up things in his background. He's a politician, but on ballots a better history on environmental stuff than most governors in the country. I should also note here under Walls, Minnesota passed the nation's most comprehensive ban on PFAS chemicals, a category of industrial compounds that do not break down and run off and have been associated with a bunch of cancers and other health risks. It is a ban that rolls out over an eight year timeframe, so you know, maybe it's not like who knows how well it will actually get executed, but literally no other state has passed a ban this strong. So I'm putting it in the ups for Walls category. Now, that is kind of what I had to say. I didn't want to end talking a little bit more about Palestine, because again, Walls has a very mixed record here at best. While he was in the House, he received APAX in endorsement and spoke at the group's twenty ten conference, where he said this Israel is our truest and closest ally in the region, with a commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood. You know, I might quibble with me most of that. Well, except for with our closest ally in the region. That's kind of hard to argue with. After October seventh, he ordered state flags flown at half staff and condemned the Hamas attacks. In early March, he began endorsing calls for a permanent working ceasefire, a few days after Harris called for a six week ceasefire. He's made statements about how the uncommitted protesters should be listened to, same thing about college protesters. But he's not backing an embargo, right, He's not you know, pushing any kind of like stick to actually force Netnahu's hand in any way. You would not say he's the worst democrat on Gaza, but he's not, you know, particularly good either.
He didn't lie about volunteering with the IDEA.
He did not lie about volunteering with the IDF as a teenager. That's that's one thing we can say.
But unfortunately the bar is quite low these days.
Yeah, so you know that's Tim Walls, a political biography. I hope you now can walk away being like, Okay, that's that's more or less who Tim Walls is.
I do. I do feel it's important to end with one more kind of anecdote about Tim Walls that I learned this morning, Okay, is that on I believe his first date with his with his soon to be wife, when he was teaching geography, he took her to see the movie Falling Down, the nineteen ninety three Michael Douglas masterpiece, incredibly based, which I feel like every single politician should be forced to watch.
I would make it a mandatory part of graduation. You know, that was that was an important movie for me.
It is a pretty funny first date movie. It's not the worst, you know, It's not like it's not like American Psychoach, which is also a great movie, but you know it is. It is a curee his first pick. But I think it is important that whoever is sitting in the White House is familiar with Falling Down. Yeahs, as it kind of displays American male violence.
It predicted a kind of guy who was just starting to like yeah, creep, up into public consciousness when the movie came out, and who now commits a mass shooting every four weeks.
Yeah, yeah, so I think that is a very funny anecdote.
Watch Falling Down, folks. It's a great date movie, you know, maybe double Parrot with Event Horizon and really really gets an act in Christ. All right, Garrey, that's the end of the episode. How are you feeling pretty good?
Pretty good? Honestly, well, you know, not great. You know, actually the whole situation politically in the country is kind of a nightmare.
It's fine, it's fine.
Somehow, I feel slightly better than I did two months ago.
I'm gonna tell you, this is the best it's been in a while, and maybe maybe the best in all ever be again.
Which also just points to how low the bar is at the moment.
Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Look, best case scenario, Matt Walsh is mad. It is a little further than mad. We'll see, we'll see if we can get like a welfare check over at his house. Anyway, that's the end of the episode. Good night and good luck.
Carl Walls.
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