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| Photo by Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters, via. |
One thing on the selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as the Democrats' vice presidential candidate that I think it's up to me to say, because it's about one of my hobbyhorses, in the face of the fatwah issued by ayatollah Jonathan Chait:
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Need to Pivot to the Center Right Now
Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. (I guess Chait means "the center right! now!" rather than "the center! right now!", but both are problematic.)
He doesn't bother to specify what exactly they need to do in terms of policy, other than suggesting that Walz needs to back off of "providing free health care to unauthorized immigrants"—because Chait thinks it's politically more advantageous to punish the undocumented than it is to protect the broader public against the spread of a deadly pandemic ("Healthcare exclusions contribute to extreme inequities...Latinx Minnesotans have died of COVID-19 at twice the age-adjusted rate of white Minnesotans and their age-adjusted ICU-admittance rate for COVID-19 is nearly four times higher"). It's "moderate", for Chait, to force a susceptible subgroup of the population to seek care in the emergency room or just die untreated, and what you need right now is that kind of "moderation":
