Minnesota Governor and failed VP candidate Tim Walz appeared on Gavin Newsom's podcast and proceeded to talk about how scared Republicans were of him, suggesting his masculinity intimidated them.
As Bonchie reported, Walz went so far as to claim that he could "kick most of their *****," and that he's baffled as to why they spent time trying to attack his masculinity:
"I think some of us scare them. I think I scare them a little bit, is why they spend so much time on me. No, I'm serious because I can fix a truck, they know I'm not b************ on this. And I'm not putting this in people's grill. I don't know if...my identity is not hunting. My identity is not football coaching. My identity is not, you know, a beard and a truck..."
[...]
It just baffled me how much time they spent trying to attack me that I wasn't masculine enough in their vision. Like, I would have never believed this. I saw Fox News did a couple days because I used a straw. I'm like, "Hell, what am I...how else do you drink a milkshake type of thing." But they focused on it obsessively, which I think, again, is their obsession, their weirdness. We buy their frame on these issues of sexuality.
Firstly, let's take a step back on proclaiming masculinity because you can fix trucks. Queen Elizabeth could fix trucks too, it didn't make her masculine. Throwing a football isn't an indicator of masculinity, either. Football and fixing trucks is a hobby, not a virtue.
One thing I will note, is that there is a real fear of Walz and his masculinity coming from Republicans, especially Republican men, but it's not a fear of Walz himself per se, it's what his masculinity represents.
Walz's masculinity isn't masculinity, in fact, I'd say it's antithetical to what masculinity stands for. It has qualities of masculinity on the surface — "I can fix trucks, I can throw a ball, I can coach a sportsball team" — but when you dig even a little under the surface, you start to see that this mask is a thin layer of paint disguising what it really is.
No, it's not femininity. Femininity is not antithetical to masculinity, as femininity is not masculinity's enemy. What Walz calls "masculinity" is more of a weakening agent to masculinity. Like putting too much tap water into an excellent scotch. It's performative masculinity, and I'd even say "easy" masculinity.
For one, announcing "I can beat you up" is not a display of masculinity. There are plenty of very masculine men who don't go around announcing their ability to physically dominate others to the point of harm. In fact, if you look at masculinity's goals, it's peacekeeping. It's utilizing strength in order to stop violence from happening and keeping order when chaos attempts to rise.
Walz, by pounding his chest and declaring himself a dominating force, is actually presenting himself as a threat to people who had no intention to become unpeaceful. They just don't agree with his politics.
Moreover, masculinity is about leadership, especially in times of strife. Whenever I think of Walz's leadership, I think of a man who is subject to the whims of modernity. When the transgender agenda reared its head and demanded leaders submit to it, Walz denied all reality and science and bent the knee to it, placing tampon machines in boy's bathrooms.
Moreover, his own Lt. Governor, Penny Flanagan, showed up to a speech wearing a shirt that read "Protect Trans Kids" that had a knife under the word "protect." This shirt conveys the message that getting violent to give the trans movement its way is okay, leading one to ask why Walz's second-in-command was allowed to effectively threaten the people of Minnesota. What's masculine about allowing his understudy to disrupt the peace and subtly promote violence against his own people?
Masculinity protects and keeps the peace, but Tim Walz bent the knee to an agenda that openly hates masculinity, so much so that he allowed his Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan to advocate violence against his own citizens in order to "protect" the trans agenda. pic.twitter.com/nbEaRVJ1N0
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) March 20, 2025
Walz has demonstrated that what he considers to be "masculinity" is really just a pale imitation of it, and that should be feared in the same way an invading army should be feared. It should be resisted and pushed back on because it is ultimately a destructive force that could ruin civilizations.
Masculinity builds and safeguards, but Walz has made it clear that he's not willing to do either. He believes that masculinity means stepping back and doing nothing. He's indicated that it's somehow brave to relinquish the wheel to forces that have proven destructive and divisive. This is the opposite of masculinity, and to be honest, it tells me that Walz has no idea what masculinity actually is.
And if you can't accurately embody it, you sure can't wield it.
