Donald Trump and his supporters have nicknames for every major Democrat. There’s “Sleepy Joe,” “Crazy Nancy Pelosi,” and the former president recently started trying out “Kamabla” for Kamala Harris (not his most inspired work). Of course, Tim Walz was going to need his own schoolyard taunt. “Tiny Tim”? “Wonky Walz”? No, MAGA conservatives have instead opted for “Tampon Tim.”
The right has seized on that nickname to draw attention to a piece of legislation Walz signed into law as governor of Minnesota. The law, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, requires that students have access to menstrual products at school. Specifically, products like tampons and pads “must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades four to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district.”
If you ever got your period in the middle of AP Euro and were caught without a tampon, you know that this would be a lifesaver. However, in the eyes of Team Trump, it makes Walz some kind of sick and twisted monster.
“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Fox News. “Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports. He actually signed a bill to do that.”
MAGA Inc., a super-PAC supporting the Trump campaign, quickly put together an attack ad harping on the tampon thing, calling Walz a “weird radical liberal.”
“What could be weirder than signing a bill into law that requires schools to stock tampons in boys’ bathrooms,” asks the ad’s narrator. Right-wingers are particularly obsessed with the fact that there will be menstrual products in the boys bathroom, often pairing that with Walz’s support for transgender minors in their attacks. I guess they think that if a boy sees a tampon he might become trans? The argument is not super clear.
What is obvious is that Walz calling Trump “weird” has really struck a nerve. Trump supporters are desperate to throw the insult back at him, and are hoping that “Tampon Tim” is what sticks.
Drawing more attention to Walz for his ability to actually get progressive legislation pushed through is not what I would be doing if I were on the other team, but that’s just me! For their next trick, maybe MAGA commentators can rip into Walz for loving Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. I’m sure that’ll go over well, too.
