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This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

“woke” is the new caravan.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Giving up is unforgivable.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

Second rate reporter says what?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

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You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Reason for Hope (Walz) Open Thread

Reason for Hope (Walz) Open Thread

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From the Washington Post, “Hope Walz’s pragmatic videos are helping Democrats mourn — and carry on” [gift link]:

In her first TikTok video after the presidential election, Hope Walz and her younger brother are driving without Secret Service protection for the first time post-campaign.

“Finally free,” Gus Walz says from the driver’s seat.

“I would not describe it like that,” Hope, 23, replies. “But it is a little weird.”…

“We’ll be okay,” Hope Walz, a frequent companion to her father on the campaign trail, assures her audience in the Nov. 7 video. “We’re going to be okay, everyone.”

For some following along, that’s all the reassurance they need: If one of the people closest to the Democrats’ loss can pick themselves up and carry on, then so can they, even while they remain terrified that President-elect Donald Trump will eliminate rights they hold dear. As Walz uses TikTok to grieve, process and plan her next steps, many watching — especially women — are doing the same…

Walz’s near-daily videos run the gamut from intensely serious to entertainingly lighthearted. In her first few posts after the election, she tells her audience that she had been wearing the same blue Graviet sweatshirt for days, that “this sadness and this heaviness is going to be something that we all feel for a long time” and that those worried about Trump’s second term should respond by getting involved in their local communities. In later videos, she displays her Trader Joe’s haul, shows off her outfits and gives a tour of her Subaru Crosstrek.

Neither Walz, who works as a social worker at a homeless shelter and a ski instructor, nor the Minnesota governor’s office responded to requests for an interview about the TikTok account, which has surpassed 230,000 followers.

But in thousands of comments across dozens of videos, those watching wrote that Walz’s insights and snapshots of her life were showing them “how to pick up the pieces” and remain calm in light of an election outcome that feels catastrophic to them…

“Hope said something about, it’s okay for us to have big feelings, it’s okay for us to be disappointed,” Northman-Kelly, 56, recalled, “and yet we still need to take a little time to grieve and then put one foot in front of the other and march forward and choose to do better.”…

I will try again tomorrow is gonna be our mantra for a while, I guess.

Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    Nukular Biskits

    I expect we’ll see a lot more of Tim Walz and his family.

    Good people. Better than we deserve. And I’m jealous of Minnesota folks for having him as their governor.

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    In later videos, she displays her Trader Joe’s haul, shows off her outfits and gives a tour of her Subaru Crosstrek.

    She’s definitely one of us.

  6. 6.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: At least Republicans ain’t got Rep. Bob “No” Good no more!

    I think you should stick some deer antlers on a portrait of Good and hang it on your wall.

  7. 7.

    StringOnAStick

    Hey, Gloria Drygarden!  I finally realized which plant you were asking about in my garden post so long ago and I haven’t caught up to you lately; that mound in the background with the bluish flowers is catmint, probably the Walkers Low variety. Make sure you get a nonseeding version of catmint, because the ones that make seeds rapidly become pests.  Very tough plant, bees love it, cut it back once in the summer and it will regrow and bloom all over again.

    Both my husband and I are battling nasty colds; I’m finally feeling semi human again after 8 days though I still sound like I smoke two packs a day. I tried to stay away from him, but he’s now on day 3.  Hopefully his won’t be as bad. I’ve tested 3 times and it’s not Covid 19; feels bad enough to be though.

    Happy holiday of your choice, and lo, Saturnalia to all.

  8. 8.

    MagdaInBlack

    @StringOnAStick: I’ve just recovered from a similar snot-fest of a cold. Also tested for covid and it was not. Just 2 weeks of misery.

    Glad you are recovering and my sympathy to your husband.

  10. 10.

    WTFGhost

    I’m constantly in pain, constantly exhausted and the reason I post here is because I can’t read, write, listen, or speak, for very long without my brain short circuiting.

    I have hope. A hope that things will get better.

    You can grieve – you should! – but you can give your grief real meaning if you’re able to do something to help. And I don’t mean you have to change the course of US national politics – help out at a hospital, or a nursing home, or a school, and do *something* good. “Those bastards stole our last obvious chance to avoid fascism, but I’m not letting that turn me into someone who doesn’t care.”

    You can feel hopeless, and helpless on occasion, but, you can’t imagine the bitter loneliness of knowing I can’t even *try* to engage, because as soon as a stress kicks up, I’ll get weird and abandoned, again, nor the frustration of constant pain and brain defects constantly interfering with everything I want to do.

    I feel hope.

    I’m not saying you should feel *guilty* if you can’t feel hope. I’m saying, if *I* can, why can’t you? And that’s a serious question: what’s blocking you?

    Are you in pain all day, every day? You could be, and not know it. *I* didn’t know it – people had told I was fine for so long, I believed them. You might need to consider your pains could be neurological, and not presenting as “ouch” pain. Which is to say, there *is* hope….

    Do you feel there’s unchecked power, and horrible things will happen? You may be right – but mightn’t we wait to see that, before feeling despair?

    Are you furious that the Republicans get to lie about everything, and we try to tell the truth, and it gets us slaughtered? You damn well should be, but that’s not a reason to lose hope, that’s more a reason to try to find a better place to put your fury, than a reason to despair.

    Seriously: as I’ve tried to tell my friends, I don’t have a *merry* Christmas to wish them… but I do wish them hope – a *hopeful* Christmas. If you’re like me, raised in a Christian tradition, you know Christmas is, in large part, the birth of hope, and the returning of “the light”.

    If you need hope, try to find some. Joy, happiness, and all that stuff, that’s good too, but hope is the most important thing.

  12. 12.

    MagdaInBlack

    Thank you, AL, I’ve wondered what the Walz family was doing to recover. Glad to see they’re just as level-headed as always.

  13. 13.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @StringOnAStick: catmint! Of course! ( slaps palm to forehead)

    I have it, I should have recognized it.  I have the walkers low, it’s tough, I never water it. I need to cut it back sooner, so I get a nice upright rebloom. I think i propagate more of it from cuttings, pretty easy.

    I do have the pesky reseeding one too, but in hard to escape places.

    i have an incredible purple salvia, very drought tolerant, not a princess at all, that I also grow in 16 hours of sun. The only extra water it gets is if I shovel snow onto it in winter. But aren’t you in the nw, where it rains?

    thanks for getting back to me. I thought your garden was beautiful.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    @WTFGhost

    “I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair, optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical.”
    – Harry Nilsson
    .
    Often reflected in his music.

  18. 18.

    moonbat

    I’ve been following Walz and his daughter since the election. They are keeping up a lovely ‘dialogue’ with one another through their posts. She is well named.

  22. 22.

    Mousebumples

    I’m planning to get more involved where and when I can in the new year. Local #WisDems, maybe try to coordinate a local regular gathering of like minded adults in my neighborhood… Little things to feel like I’m making a difference and my family isn’t alone.

Comments are closed.