Vice presidential candidate and Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is getting applause online after a viral video showed him convincing frat boys to vote for him and Kamala Harris.
With more and more men, including young men, shifting ever further to the right, the importance of Walz's impact cannot be overestimated.
And his success in reaching these young men ultimately came down to something very simple—a discussion of core values.
In the video, one of the young men told Walz that he and most of his fraternity brothers were undecided until they watched the September 10 debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump. Pointing to his friends, the young man said:
“This guy was undecided, so was this guy, and they’re both coming out for you."
Walz used the moment to teach the frat boys an important lesson about voting and American politics—and a vitally important one in these times.
“It’s not about agreeing on every single core issue. It’s about that core belief."
He then listed off a series of beliefs that have all but become anathema to Republicans these days.
"This whole idea that you can’t agree that the election was fair, this whole idea that people should have personal freedoms, which is kind of like the politics are turning over.”
Walz was presumably referencing the shockingly intense lurch rightward that conservative politics, which purports to be about personal responsibility and "freedom" above all else, has made in recent years, and contrasting it with the Democrats' more open-minded—and Constitutional, for that matter—approach.
He then urged the young men to try to inspire their friends to engage with the election and go to the polls.
“Talk to your friends. Some of them are just gonna say, ‘Look, I’m not that into politics.’"
"The answer to that is, ‘Too damn bad! Politics is into you.'"
On social media, people applauded Walz for reaching young men, which could be a vital paradigm shift in the election at large.
Here's hoping Walz's influence on these young men is contagious.
@Pontifex/X
