Compass Counterpoint

8 September 2024

Tim Walz — A “dangerous liberal”?

Donald Trump’s absurd assertion deserves a response.

The US is unique in viewing “liberal” as synonymous with “left”.

Generally US liberals are mostly concerned with progressive issues like civil rights and liberties, Medicare, arms sales, peace and so forth. They’re less concerned with issues like wealth redistribution, housing programmes for the poor and such matters that have traditionally been given equal weight by the left parties in other western democracies. In those countries, ‘liberal’ may or may not mean liberal social attitudes, but it invariably refers to classical liberalism ie liberal economics.

The US is alone among western democracies in having never given rise to a mainstream party that originated in the labour movement. The tiny American Green and Socialist parties come closer to the traditions of the large social democratic parties of Europe.

Ted Walz, with his strong attachment to the trade union movement and various progressive views, is certainly more left than most well-known political figures in the US. But in the context of the other western democracies, his ‘leftism’ is on a very modest scale.

Take a look at his record:

Tax Credits

As Governor of Minnesota, he instituted tax credits — family benefits — deemed dangerously left wing by his opponents. Yet according to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) out of 41 countries only Turkey gives less help to families than the US.

School Meals

It’s the same story with Tim Walz’s “radical” provision of free school meals in Minnesota. Yet this is the norm in very many countries. Even India gives free school meals to millions of kids.

Paid Leave and Medical Leave

It’s enjoyed by Minnesotans, but the US is alone among OECD countries in lacking a law facilitating access to paid leave for new mothers.

Climate Change

Again Walz has come under fire for ‘extremism’. His positions would take the US further towards addressing the climate emergency, but still fall short of the efforts of other wealthy countries.

What it all Means

In the simplistic and hyperbole-soaked rhetoric of Donald Trump, Tim Walz is “extreme left”. That would put him somewhere near … who? Pol Pot? Stalin? The North Korean leadership?

Donald Trump is a man of many convictions. Thirty-four of them actually. Ironically he is a hardliner when it comes to the crimes of others. It is Trump who shares something important with not only the above-mentioned extreme left, but also all authoritarian anti-democratic régimes past and present. Unlike Walz, Trump is an unswerving supporter of capital punishent.

It’s actually an issue on which Kamala Harris has a mixed record. She broke her abolitionist principles in 2016 when, as California’s attorney general, she fought to overturn a court ruling that could have paved the way towards elimination of the death penalty in that state.

In all other western democracies, capital punishent has long been abolished. It is opposed by mainstream parties of both the left and the right.