Tim Walz is right – JD Vance is very weird

Tim Walz has managed to dominate the attention of the mainstream media over the past few weeks. Not because of groundbreaking policy announcements at the Democratic National Convention (because there were none), nor because of his taking part in a thorough and impartial CNN interview (because the interview was neither of those things), but because he has consistently been calling his Republican opponent, JD Vance, “weird”.

Assuming that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president, is capable of coming up with an original thought, and that this wasn’t cooked up by a PR focus group funded by the $540-million Democratic fundraising campaign, it seems appropriate to discern what Walz means by the word “weird” and why he has used it so much.

Having taught in British state secondary schools for most of my professional life and having been in charge of pupils’ behaviour, I have heard the term “weird” often used by child versions of Tim Walz: children who come from stable, middle-class, two-parent families trying to explain their abnormal, working-class, single-parent or no-parent counterparts.

Usually, the term is used to describe and put down students who come from troubled backgrounds and are performing particularly strongly, students like, well, like JD Vance.

The fact that Walz and Vance come from such opposing sides of the tracks hasn’t been discussed by the mainstream media much – they had to report on the important story of all that “weirdness”.

Tim Walz was raised by a mother and father in a traditional nuclear family – his father was a school teacher, and his mother was a homemaker and community activist.

JD Vance, on the other hand, was raised primarily by his grandmother. His father gave up custody of him when he was six years old, and his mother was a drug addict and involved in a series of unstable and abusive relationships.

I have taught and cared for many children who grew up in circumstances like JD Vance did. Children who come to school with grubby shirt collars and latch on to you at break times. Children who find school a safe place, a shelter from the inconsistency of home life. Children who have a warning on their school profile telling teachers not to contact their parents.

When your home life is tumultuous and school is a respite; when you cannot afford the latest trends; when simply having enough food and time with one of the stabler adults in your extended family count for birthday and Christmas treats, it is understandable that you may come across as a bit weird.

Those who use the term in a derogatory manner and as a way of expressing what their childish mind cannot fully comprehend should be treated with understanding. But such childish insults are not understandable in the context of an adult who is running for one of the most important political positions in the world.

However, if we do not take the word as a pejorative – even though Walz clearly is using it as such – but instead understand the word as what it literally means: “very strange and unusual, unexpected” (Cambridge Dictionary), then, yes, there are plenty of reasons to describe JD Vance as weird.

The first “weirdness” is Vance’s meteoric rise to political stardom at such a young age.

Joe Biden, at 81 years old, is the oldest president of the United States and was up until a few months ago seeking re-election. Vance, on the other hand, could become the second-youngest US Vice President in the last century and the third-youngest in US history.

Vance would be one of the first millennials to enter the US Cabinet, with only Pete Buttigieg having served before him. He is also a weirdly young senator, elected at just 38 years of age, among a Senate in which the average age is 65.

Walz, on the other hand, is as normal as possible. The average age for a governor in 2022 was 58, which was the age of Tim Walz when he was re-elected as Governor of Minnesota in 2022.

The second “weirdness” is that childhoods marked by the levels of volatility and poverty that JD Vance experienced rarely produce senior US political leaders.

In the past hundred years, only one Vice President, Charles Curtis, was raised by someone other than a parent, and even he did not endure the kind of impoverished upbringing that Vance did. Gerald Ford was born into a marriage marked by domestic abuse, but his circumstances improved when his mother left his father and remarried, providing him with relative stability.

Suffice to say, if Vance is successful come election time in November, he will be a rare example of someone who has overcome both poverty and domestic violence to reach the Vice-Presidential arena.

Tim Walz, on the other hand, is not weird in this regard. If elected, he will join the significant majority of US Vice Presidents and Presidents who enjoyed stable home environments during their childhoods.

The third “weirdness” is that Vance’s story of growing up in an abusive, poverty-stricken environment is so rarely heard, and even more rarely told in such a self-critical and frank manner.

Anyone who has read Hillbilly Elegy, Vance’s seminal memoir, will be struck by the harrowing account of his troubled young life. Vance delivers his story in a non-hyperbolic and unsentimental way, which somehow manages to also inspire a tremendous sense of hope.

When the stories of people who grew up like Vance are rarely told, it is nearly always done by people like Tim Walz, waxing lyrical about how they made someone who was poor realise that his or her life had meaning, with the implication that it was almost entirely down to the mentor figure. We so rarely hear the story of just what it was like for the child, as Vance gives it to us in his memoir.

Walz’s type of story, on the other hand, has been told over and over again. Teachers, which includes myself, are constantly lauded for our work and often given platforms to share our experiences. The Democratic campaign trail is no different, and wherever possible, Walz includes a vignette about his time working in education as a high school teacher and sports coach.

Not content with being known just as the man who changes young people’s lives, Walz also lets voters know about his time in the US National Guard. He even offers a little embellishment by telling crowds about “weapons of war” that he carried, despite never having participated in conflict or even getting close to a conflict zone.

Especially now that we live in a social media age where we declare our life’s greatest accomplishments in a 160-character bio, Coach Walz is about as normal as they come.

Whereas when a man like Vance has overcome a broken home and abuse to become an academic, business and political success – he also served time in the military; not in a combat role, which he is clear about – and unassumingly uses it for what he believes is right, that is indeed weird.

While Tim Walz’s use of the term “weird” to describe JD Vance may seem like a simplistic jab, it inadvertently highlights the truly unconventional – and upliftingly remarkable – nature of Vance’s journey.

Vance’s ascent from a troubled and impoverished childhood to the heights of political power defies the typical narratives we hear about American political success.

His frankness, resilience and willingness to challenge societal norms without seeking validation stand in stark contrast to the more predictable paths of politicians like Walz, who rely on well-trodden stories of service and stability, as does much of the fawning mainstream media that trumpets Walz and the sorts of politicians they deem acceptable.

Vance humbly shares his story – if media give him the chance – without sentiment and in the hope that it might inspire change for those left behind. Whereas Walz parades his story to the chants of “Coach!” in the hope it might inspire more admiration and votes.

If “weird” means, as Vance has done, defying expectations, embracing one’s past without gloss, and pursuing change without fanfare, then perhaps we should be celebrating and calling for more of that kind of weird in politics.

RELATED: JD Vance’s Catholic conversion inspired by St Augustine – and the wreckage of the modern age

RELATED: Tim Walz’s obsession with the so-called ‘weirdness’ (aka Catholicism) of JD Vance

Photo: Republican vice presidential candidate, US Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) at a campaign rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA, 20 August 2024. Vance is campaigning in several battleground states as part of his campaign efforts alongside former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Andy Manis/Getty Images.)

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