During a campaign rally with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on August 8 in Michigan, Harris's running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, used the word “damn.” 4 times during his transient remarks, including in two sentences in a row:
“If you have a billion dollars, you don't care about your pension. But if you're like my mother and your pension is your only income, it's damn important,” he said.
The following day, in Glendale, Arizona, Walz used the term eight more times. A day later, at a rally in Las Vegas, he used the expression again eight times.
And in a social media post on August 13, he stated that he was “rattling proud“ of his military service.
These incidents were obviously not mistakes or momentary lapses in judgment. What was the vice presidential candidate trying to perform by repeatedly using a term that some people find offensive?
I’m a cognitive scientist who studies and writes about Language and communicationOne query that occurred to me was whether Walz spoke as he at all times did or whether he consciously developed a brand new way of expressing himself.
A consistent story
It seems that Walz's use of the word “damn” in public is nothing recent to him.
In 2023, for instance, he stated: “Minnesota has waited an extended time“ for gun control measures.
At a press conference in Iowa two months later, he stressed – twice – that folks should mind their very own business.rattling businesswhen it got here to abortion, LGBTQ issues and college curricula.
Previously, in 2022, he said that the 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was not “do something to prevent abortions.” In 2020, he stated that the choice to ban police from using chokeholds on suspects “a damn low bar.”
And even earlier, in 2015, then US Representative Walz was quoted as saying: “to hell with politics“ as he solid his vote totally free trade agreements.
Apparently this term has been a part of the candidate's normal speaking style for a few years.
Although research suggests that swear words cause people to perceived negativelyWalz's efforts on the ballot box don’t appear to have harmed him. He has won eight out of eight elections during his political professionMember of the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms and Governor of Minnesota for 2 terms.
During this time there was also a major Increase in swear words utilized by politicians on social media, and this may occasionally have made such language seem less offensive to his voters.
Politicians and obscenities
Walz's caustic language has an extended tradition in American politics. One of the primary heads of presidency to make use of such language publicly was the populist Andrew Jackson – although history says that his Parrot with vulgar mouth The statement that he needed to be faraway from his funeral in 1845 may or is probably not true.
In the twentieth century, Jackson was joined by people like Harry Truman, who called General Douglas MacArthur “stupid bastard.“ Lyndon Johnson was notorious for loosen up his conversations with words like “piss” and “shit.” And other candidates for top office, like Barry Goldwater, noted that only a “rattling idiot“ would attempt to predict the longer term.
Vice presidents are also known for turning the tide at unexpected moments. Dick Cheney famously told U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy to “go away”fuck you“ during a debate in the Senate. And then-Vice President Joe Biden told President Barack Obama that passing health care reform “a damn big deal.”
And even presidents who didn’t curse publicly may very well be quite vulgar of their private meetings, because the transcripts of Richard Nixon's conversations within the Oval Office made clear. Nixon had a keenness for the word “damn” and have used it often in conversation along with his employees.
In short, many politicians in other contexts have chosen to specific themselves in an identical option to how Walz did throughout the election campaign.
A phenomenon price reporting?
Journalists seem to seek out these episodes remarkable enough to put in writing about. In 2012, for instance, Rolling Stone made an enormous deal about Obama calling Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney “an idiot“ in an interview with the magazine.
In 2016, the New York Times published a story about Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham under the headline “Rude and proud of it”, which details the candidates’ use of expressions equivalent to “damn”, “hell” and “bullshit”.
And in 2019, a Los Angeles Times columnist complained that Democratic presidential candidates Corey Booker, Steve Bullock and Beto O'Rourke “curse a blue stripe', using expressions like “f—ed up.”
Why is such behavior considered newsworthy?
This could also be due partly to our high expectations of the behavior of political leaders – at the very least in public. When politicians use vulgar language, they deviate from this lofty standard. This appears to be the case regardless that generations of politicians have did not live as much as this ideal.
Advantages of the blue language?
People often use cross-border language to create a certain impression. And in Walz's case, he could also be trying to determine – or enhance – his role as an everyday guy, an everyman. Some observers have identified that Donald Trump's use of swear words an indication of the authenticity of the previous president.
Younger adults are also more tolerant of swear words than members of older generations. The widespread use of swear words in Hip-hop and other music genres could also be a reason for this.
As Walz continues his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, it would be interesting to see whether he chooses to make use of a more moderate approach to speech or whether he views his outspokenness as a bonus reasonably than a drawback.
image credit : theconversation.com