It is definitely true that voters by and large don’t care about foreign policy, which is a shame because it’s one element where the executive branch (and the President in particular) has an outsized role in crafting. Unfortunately, Walz is largely unimpressive here. Walz offers the tired “however long it takes” line on Ukraine, but seems unwilling to discuss pushing forward the expansion of the defense industrial sector to crank out military materiel that would enable a Ukrainian victory. And lest anyone say “he’s a governor, that’s not really his bailiwick,” I’ll point out that he has discussed agricultural partnerships with Ukraine. So whether it is or not, he seems to be looking at stage four when we’re still in stage two. He’s better than JD Vance who seems to all but salivate at the idea of Ukraine being put under Putin’s thumb, but I’m sick of “however long it takes” when the real issue is “however much it takes,” especially when that “much” has such a positive ROI.
But Walz does have one thing really going for him that I undersold him on - he’s a hardcore YIMBY. While federal policy has a small effect on housing (his efforts to push for single-staircase apartment complexes is laudable though), he has the basis to push for energy policy in a big way. Unlike a lot of clean-energy progressives, Walz is pro-nuclear power which is very welcome. If we want a feasible and effective energy transition, we’re going to need nuclear in addition to renewables along with investments in batteries. The infrastructure plans we’ve put in place for EV chargers have been massively expensive and have put few chargers in play. EV’s are already unpopular due to the price tag, but without plentiful chargers, they’re going to be out of reach for the majority of Americans. Walz appears a whole lot less interested in *talking* about energy as opposed to *building* a new energy infrastructure which is very good.
Economically, he strikes me as a guy that’s going to engage in protectionism. Given how aggressively he courted the United Steelworkers endorsement, he’s almost certainly going to act to block the Nippon Steel deal which is a victory for the rent-seekers and a loss for the US economy as a whole. Hopefully I’m wrong on that, but I doubt that I am. Permitting reform at the federal level is a different beast than at the state level and the stakeholders who benefit from slow builds and dysfunction are different. So here’s hoping he doesn’t have much impact on economic policy, or he takes a better turn instead of seeking out the narrow interest of his donors.
On the campaign trail, he looks to be injecting a strong sense of optimism. Pretty much every observer says that the campaign energy has changed within the past month and Walz is definitely a part of it. The actual turnaround is truly remarkable, this 2024 election will probably be studied for the sheer reversals.
But that being said, he made a pretty big gaffe a few days ago when he said: “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” I understand what he was probably trying to do - resurrect the old Harry Truman line when he was giving his speech in Syracuse in 1952. However, Walz has two problems on this regard. The first is just timing - socialism was in the public eye recently because Maduro blatantly stole an election in Venezuela and is at this very moment jailing protesters and opposition figures. Even if Walz didn’t mean to sound like he was defending Maduro’s electoral fraud (and I’m certain he didn’t), it comes across as remarkably tone-deaf at best.
The second is, well, frankly, he doesn’t have the credibility that someone like Truman would have. By the time of Truman’s speech, HST had forcefully articulated the Truman Doctrine for almost five years in fighting for European sovereignty free from the Soviet Union. By contrast, progressives have been whitewashing bad behavior for socialist politicians for a long while now - Bernie Sanders compared Ortega’s shuttering of opposition press exposing the Sandinista killings of the Rana and Miskito people to shutting down Nazi publications, Jeremy Corbyn was feted by the Squad even after being expelled by the Labour Party for championing anti-Semitism, Chavez and Maduro were darlings even as they sponsored terrorism in South America and drove their countries into economic ruin. It doesn’t even have to be a socialist politician, the DSA is actively pro-Putin and pro-Xi, to a startling lack of condemnation from American progressive politicians.
To me, that suggests a lack of judgement. Without a whole lot of exposure on the national stage, these early steps matter, and to me, it was a mind-numbingly *stupid* action. It looks like he’s falling into the trap most progressives fall into, the reflexive tribal need to defend the cause to assert a sense of superiority. That doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence.
-SLAL
