As the presidential race heats up, Kamala Harris has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice-presidential nominee. A former high school teacher and Army National Guardsmen, Walz is being hailed in the capitalist media as a “relatable everyman” who can connect with rural voters in the Midwest. Democratic Party strategists are flaunting his “progressive credentials” while governing Minnesota: from passing free breakfast and lunch programs for public school students to legalizing recreational marijuana.

The Harris campaign has used her pick to whip up enthusiasm among billionaire donors and the Democratic Party base as a whole, with the Harris-Walz ticket raising over $41 million within days of the announcement. At a rally of over 10,000 people in Philadelphia, Walz spoke of his humble “middle class” background, contrasting himself with Trump’s pick for vice president, J.D. Vance.

While the establishment media foments illusions in Walz, we must remember he is the same person who sent in the National Guard to quell the George Floyd movement of 2020. It is the duty of communists to tell the truth: Walz is a capitalist politician, and if elected, will govern according to the dictates of the system. While his origins may be humble, he is a career politician who has loyally served the billionaires at every step of the road.

Walz’s record in Congress

From 2007 to 2019, Walz served as a member of the US House of Representatives from Minnesota’s 1st District, which includes much of the rural, southern part of the state.

Agriculture plays a large role in the area’s economy, and Walz’s campaigns for office were funded by agribusiness PACs such as the National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation, and United Egg Association. These PACs represent an industry plagued with workplace injuries, child labor, and the brutal exploitation of immigrant workers. These agribusinesses would have never funded his campaign if he represented a threat to their interests. While in Congress, he proudly “worked across the aisle” with Republicans on the Agriculture Committee, managing the national agriculture industry in the interests of the capitalists.

Walz also spent his time in Congress expanding the military budget and supporting US imperialism’s global “allies.” He backed military funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also voted to approve subsidies for Israel and condemned a UN resolution opposing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In 2009, he went on a trip to the Middle East and met with Netanyahu, the very man heading up today’s massacre of the people of Gaza.

More recently, after October 7, he asserted that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” supporting the genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza. According to Walz, “The ability of Jewish people to self-determine themselves is foundational … The failure to recognize the state of Israel is taking away that self-determination. So it is antisemitic.” This conflation of criticism of Israel and antisemitism is exactly the same deceitful argument used by Biden and the capitalist media when defending Israel’s genocidal methods.

Capitalism in Minnesota is rotten to the core

Since becoming Minnesota’s governor in 2019, Walz has catered to the interests of the Fortune 500, the largest companies in the country. Seventeen of these megacorporations are headquartered in the state, including 3M (which manufactures military equipment), Hormel (an agribusiness giant), and US Bancorp (a major bank). Ranking above “free market” Texas, Minnesota is in fact the “fifth top state for business” in the nation—a safe place for companies to invest. Whatever regulations or laws Walz has passed, they have ultimately been used to ensure the “peaceful” exploitation of the working class in Minnesota.

While the liberal media paints Minnesota as a shining example of a “progressive” state, it is not immune to the general crisis and contradictions of capitalism. In the same state where Democrats control all three branches of state government, over 9% of people live in poverty. In 2023, over seven million people visited food banks in Minnesota, two million more than the previous year.

In a state known for its harsh winters, one would think housing everyone would be an obvious priority. But on any given night, 10,522 people experience the pain and insecurity of homelessness in Minnesota. With median rents rising 8% over the past year, housing is unaffordable to half of all renters in the state. Evictions, that is, the forceful removal of workers from their home by the capitalist state, are up 44% compared to pre-COVID years. These barbaric conditions faced by a section of the working class are normal under capitalism in Minnesota, just as they are with US capitalism as a whole. These are also the “best” conditions that the Democrats can offer.

Any minor reforms passed by the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (the name for the Democrats in Minnesota) pale in comparison to the massive need felt by hundreds of thousands of workers in this state. And while the Democrats have passed legislation mandating 20 cumulative weeks of paid and sick leave, this mandate only takes effect in 2026, allowing plenty of time for the capitalists to repeal it, if necessary.

Have the Democrats in Minnesota delivered the change we need?

The recent “Minnesota Miracle” raft of legislation passed by Walz includes free tuition at state schools for students from families who make less than $80,000 a year, free breakfast and lunch for K–12 students, tax credits for low-income families with children, among other reforms. These reforms were only made in order to stave off social unrest and secure the “ordered” functioning of capitalism in the aftermath of the instability caused by COVID, the George Floyd movement, and a rise in strikes across the country.

The flurry of laws lined up with the Biden administration’s national “Build Back Better” stimulus legislation in 2021. Part of the national legislation involved increased federal funding for state budgets, which allowed Minnesota to have a multi-billion dollar budget surplus. With this surplus, the Democrats were able to pass a number of laws slightly improving working and living conditions. It allowed the Democrats to temporarily bypass their normal method of ruling, which is to pass no reforms at all or to pass counterreforms.

One could say that the Democrats in Minnesota have recently been “smarter” managers of the crisis of capitalism, compared to the Republicans who often opt for overt attacks on workers. The latter approach risks social instability and explosions in response.

Minor concessions and tweaks to the system, such as those offered by Walz, reinforce illusions that the system actually “works for everyone” if we elect “politicians who care.” They are a means to head off major discontent and preserve the longevity of the system. While the liberals dress up their policies as a reflection of Minnesota’s “shared values,” communists emphatically point out that the workers and capitalists share absolutely nothing in common: our class interests are diametrically opposed to theirs. For those who seek an end to the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression, we should invest no support or illusions in either capitalist party.

Trump’s favorite Governor: Walz and the George Floyd Movement

Of course, the Democrats are ready and willing to use overt oppression where necessary. After the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national mass movement against racism and police brutality, the ruling class was in shock. In the largest deployment of the Minnesota National Guard since WWII, Governor Walz reacted by deploying soldiers on Minneapolis streets, authorized to use force against protestors and enforce draconian curfews in the city. The state went all-in to defend capitalist property and disperse the protestors. Walz falsely claimed that 80% of protestors came from outside of Minnesota, leaning into the classic “outside agitators” attack on social movements. He further claimed that the protests resembled a “military operation,” which of course was merely a justification to send in armed troops.

Recently leaked audio reveals that Trump, who was president at the time, was quite happy with Walz’s handling of the situation: “I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim,” Trump said. “You called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins.” Despite their current jabs at each other, when the chips are down, the ruling class and its politicians always unite to defend their system and crush the movements of the working class.

On May 28, 2020, protestors enraged at the police and military crackdown on the movement proceeded to burn down the Third Precinct in Minneapolis, an act of near insurrection. 54% of Americans at the time thought this was justified, a testament to the revolutionary mood that raged that summer. Walz lamented the “total chaos” created by the situation, as the state apparatus partially lost control of the situation.

While touting minor reforms today, Walz quelled the one social movement with massive potential to go beyond reforms, that is, to get rid of the whole system. Had there been a revolutionary party with roots in every neighborhood, school, and workplace in the summer of 2020, the whole capitalist system would have been in danger of overturn.

Since the movement’s ebb, Walz has increased funding for police departments across Minnesota, with a massive $300 million invested in “public safety departments” in 2023. In short, Walz has performed admirably for the billionaires.

No friend to Indigenous workers and the poor

Walz always sides with the capitalists, including on the question of Indigenous sovereignty in Minnesota. Walz helped approve the expansion project for the Line 3 pipeline, owned by Enbridge, a Canadian multinational. The pipeline runs from Alberta, Canada to Wisconsin and is already responsible for the worst inland oil spill in US history. The proposed pipeline expansion route crosses through protected Ojibwe lands, despite organized opposition from the White Earth, Red Lake, Mille Lacs, Fond du Lac, and Leech Lake bands.

For Walz—like any capitalist governor—the need for the oil executives to make fabulous profits inevitably takes precedence over Indigenous sovereignty. This is par for the course for American capitalism, which is based on the mass genocide and displacement of Native peoples and the tearing up of hundreds of treaties in the name of land and profit. No number of land acknowledgements can wipe away the capitalists’ responsibility for centuries of oppression. This holds equally true for Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. If Walz becomes Vice President, she would become the first Native American woman to serve as a state governor in the country’s history. Flanagan would then be directly responsible for the exploitation and oppression of indigenous people in Minnesota.

Prospects for a Harris-Walz administration

If Walz is indeed elected to the Vice-President’s office, how would he govern? We can confidently say that he would govern as he always has: according to the needs of the ruling class. Along with Harris, he would be a “safe pair of hands” as co-manager of US capitalism. Indeed, Harris’s motivation for picking Walz for the VP nominee position is partly due to his historic “loyalty” to the Democratic Party.  Even as the media savaged him for his performance, Walz was one of the few “brave” Democrats to openly defend Biden after the infamous debate.

Walz’s agenda would be Harris’s agenda, that is, a combination of direct attacks on the working class, stimying any meaningful reforms at a national level, while making minor cosmetic changes. For example, given that Harris opposes Medicare for All, Walz would also be responsible for the disastrous state of healthcare in America. Any minor reforms that do end up getting passed would be funded mainly by taxes on the working class, just as the reforms in Minnesota were. While the working class is ground down further, the richest 1% would come out on top. After all, Wall Street and big banks are the biggest funders of the Democrats’ campaign, and they will expect a handsome return on their investment.

Harris and Walz would also continue Biden’s management of the US imperialist machine, with this or that minor change. Walz recently knocked Trump for his proposed border wall … because it wasn’t an effective method of stopping immigration. Instead, Walz proposed using “the right tools.” “You stop this using electronics, you stop this using more Border Patrol agents …” This is from the party claiming to be a friend of immigrants!

Along with his support for Netanyahu, Walz has also made it clear he supports US imperialism’s proxy Ukraine in its fight with Russian imperialism. He also supports ramping up US spending to counter China’s rapidly growing presence in the South China Sea. This represents an even more aggressive posturing on the global scale than Trump.

No support for Harris and Walz! Fight for a new system!

Given the nature of the Harris-Walz ticket, and the capitalist Democratic Party as a whole, we can say clearly: workers should not cast their vote for the Democrats. Of course, Trump is an enemy of the workers too, and we vigorously oppose him. Whoever wins this November, the working class loses. Until the working class has its own class-independent party, we will be left without a political weapon to fight back against the attacks from both capitalist parties. But we don’t despair: there is massive potential to fight back and win.

Millions of Americans today realize the rigged nature of the whole system, and rightfully reject it. 20% of the population believes that “no form of capitalism is capable of producing the kind of world we want for the next generation.” This is a solid basis for the creation of a mass communist party that can wage a concerted class war against the capitalists and reverse decades of cutbacks on our living standards.

Instead of money being spent on endless wars, a mass communist party would campaign for fully funded education and a socialized universal healthcare system. And why stop there? Our class deserves more than reforms: we deserve the earth. With a workers’ government, the entire economy would be put under the collective democratic control of the working class, from bottom to top. This is the future the Revolutionary Communists of America are confident we will achieve in our lifetime! Join us and build your party, the party of the working class!