There’s a not too slim chance that the thing making Republicans mad at Governor Tim Walz is currently in your snack drawer. When Fox News ran a segment attacking Kamala Harris for eating Doritos, Walz put out a 10 second clip via his official twitter.
The 10 second long video is devoid of politics, or content of any form worth grasping onto. Walz simply hands Kamala Harris a bag of Doritos. This sent the perpetually-addled right wing into yet another social media hysteria.
What doesn’t make the right wing in America mad? If we’re just counting this election cycle, the list includes IVF, successful women athletes, the “couch joke”, the word “coach”, Kamala’s race, Kamala’s crowd sizes, and now, the tastiest corn chip brand beloved by gamers, Midwestern Governors, and everyone in between.
This whole tete-a-tete via tortilla chips is another in a long line of fake outrages concerning food. Last week, the Harris campaign put out a video featuring her and her running mate, talking politics, plans, and tacos.
In a joke so tame it wouldn’t make a Don Rickles routine, Walz jokes about loving “White Guy Tacos.” This spurned laughter in Harris, who wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Walz elaborated that he likes his tacos plain, just meat and cheese, with little to no spice.
To the right wing, this throwaway joke about Midwestern diets hit like a racist rant published in Der Stürmer. Accusations of racism flew at the Harris campaign, but it doesn’t look like that line of attack is sticking with anyone—for lack of a better word—normal.
It’s not just food. The opposition seems to be devolving in their line of attack of the Harris campaign. Supporters at Donald Trump rallies are carrying around what many on Twitter are calling “jizz cups.” This very funny and not at all unhinged political prop is a swipe at Walz and his wife’s experience using IVF to conceive their daughter Hope.
This too, is a normal thing, for normal people to do. It’s not at all gross, ugly, and unsettling. This all begs the question: where do we go from here? What other snacks will send Republicans into the stratosphere? What other unseasoned slop will rile up the base into a frenzy?
That remains to be seen. But rest assured, if it’s anything like the recent Doritos outrage, it will be really fucking stupid.