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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Interesting op-ed (gifted link):

If Kamala Harris wanted to dispel the idea that Democrats are soft on crime, Tim Walz was an odd choice of running mate. Mr. Walz’s tenure as Minnesota’s governor will be defined by the George Floyd race riots in Minneapolis and his response to them. Americans everywhere still live with the consequences.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tim-walz-dithered-while-minneapolis-burned-kamala-harris-2020-riots-911b47eb?st=dd4l5wx7iwpfbyz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[/quote]

So wait -- is Walz a soft guy who couldn't be trusted to be hardass enough to run the country, or is he a fascist dictator who ruled Minnesota with an iron fist during the riots? I can't remember. [/quote]

The point is, he was NOT tough with rioters in MN.  He called in the National Guard, but too late - much of the damage had already occurred. This is what he was doing in the interim between when Minneapolis Mayor Frey requested he send in the National Guard, and when he actually did (almost a full 24 hrs. later) - quizzing them about their DEI training:

At 6:30 p.m. the same day, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked Mr. Walz to activate the Minnesota National Guard. Mr. Frey followed up with a written request at 9:11 p.m. Mr. Walz didn’t respond until 4 p.m. the next day, when he signed an executive order activating 500 state soldiers. [b]In the interim, his staff had quizzed the Guard about its members’ DEI training and whether they had experience working with “diverse communities,”[/b] according to a report by a Minnesota Senate committee.

And then he virtue signaled his way through his excuses about the delay:

The problem Mr. Walz allegedly confronted was that the[b] “tools of restoring order are viewed by so many as the things that have oppressed and started the problem in the first place.” [/b]He spoke of “people who are concerned about that police presence of an overly armed camp in their neighborhoods that is not seen in communities where children of people who look like me run to the police, others have to run from.”

Mr. Walz’s skin color bore on his legitimacy as a decision-maker, he said: [b]“I will not patronize you as a white male without living those experiences of how difficult”[/b] it is to have a police force occupying one’s neighborhood. He described the riots themselves as a manifestation of systemic racism: “What the world has witnessed since the killing of George Floyd on Monday has been a visceral pain, a community trying to understand who we are and where we go from here.” [b]Mr. Walz imputed a sacramental quality to the looted and torched buildings: “The ashes are symbolic of decades and generations of pain, of anguish, unheard.”[/b]

I suggest anyone wanting to debate this read the entire piece, which is linked above.[/quote]

Is this supposed to be a scathing critique?? I mean, I'm sure that Walz would have changed some things in retrospect, but these seem like important questions to be asking in the context of what was happening in Minneapolis at the time. People were questioning the legitimacy of law enforcement, and it wasn't immediately obvious that bringing in Guard troops with limited authority would make the situation better rather than worse.

If you'd ever been anywhere close to a protest you would know how important these questions are. For example, similar issues occured in DC at the time of the George Floyd protests, even though there wasn't property destruction on anything close to the same scale. The Trump admin brought in all sorts of law enforcement from across the country (such as prison guards) that acted aggressively and inflamed tensions, while local law enforcement (and incidentally the DC National Guard, who are mostly locals) were much more respectful of peaceful protesters and were therefore much more effective in keeping things peaceful. Elsewhere (post-Charlottesville), I've seen an angry mob worked up by state troopers in riot gear aggressively "keeping the peace" by protecting a group of white supremacists, and then completely defused by a city police captain who simply walked out into the crowd in plain clothes and talked down the crowd. It matters deeply whether law enforcement are perceived to be a supportive part of the community or in conflict with the community, and that dynamic was exactly what was at risk in Minneapolis in 2020.

Asking key questions and then taking thoughtful action is what leadership is supposed to look like. Honestly, this just bolsters my opinion of the guy.[/quote]

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