The all-American working man demeanor of Tim Walz—Kamala Harris’s new running mate—looks like it’s not just an act.
Financial disclosures show Tim Walz barely has any assets to his name. No stocks, bonds, or even property to call his own. Together with his wife, Gwen, his net worth is $330,000, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal citing financial disclosures from 2019, the year after he became Minnesota governor.
With that kind of meager nest egg, he would be more or less in line with the median figure for Americans his age (he’s 60), and even poorer than the average. One in 15 Americans is a millionaire, a recent UBS wealth report discovered.
Meanwhile, the gross annual income of Walz and his wife, Gwen, amounted to $166,719 before tax in 2022, according to their joint return filed that same year. Walz is even entitled to earn more than the $127,629 salary he receives as state governor, but he has elected not to receive the roughly $22,000 difference.
“Walz represents the stable middle class,” tax lawyer Megan Gorman, who authored a book on the personal finances of U.S. presidents, told the paper.
The word for this is fundamentalism. When people believe it’s their way or the highway and all others must conform.
However, in the case of trans folk, I think it’s a bit different. They’re not forcing pronouns on others, just asking that they be shown basic human respect. If you were a straight man, I’m sure you’d get pretty annoyed if someone insisted on calling you a woman nonstop. Sometimes, people need to be louder when they’re facing an existential crisis as they are in the USA among other places.
This feels like a “yes, but actually…”. That is kinda missing the point.