Sincere question from someone who doesn’t remember everything about 2005 anymore and, more importantly, has always been a civilian: irrespective of the optics in 2024, how “accurate” of a summary is that of the contemporary situation? Walz retired in May, 2005. The 125th was mobilized in October and arrived in Iraq in April, 2006. I would have assumed that, as of when he retired, the Guard would have known about it some time beforehand—but maybe not, and maybe even if they had they did not have the time or ability to have his replacement prepared and on-hand as of May.
Was it—or should it have been—clear in early 2005 that his unit was 1. going to be called up in six months and 2. going to be in Iraq within the year (that is—if it is a meaningful distinction—that, when they were mobilized for OEF in 2003–04, they spent that deployment supporting Air Force bases in Europe and not e.g. in Afghanistan)?
Liberal, especially culturally. In favor of policies that seek to help people who have suffered in some way due to entrenched societal injustices. “Ahead of the curve” in terms of things like LGBTQ rights, marijuana legalization, a nationalized option for health care, trying to slow down climate change, etc.
Nowadays, basically means “on the left half of the Democratic Party”…which means, “on the most politically left quartile of the populace.” Disproportionately (though far from exclusively) younger voters. Many of them voted for Bernie Sanders (or Elizabeth Warren) eight years ago, and needed to be in some sense “catered to” for a Democrat to succeed nationally.
This isn’t really the thread to get into this, but in a very brief nutshell, objectively it refers to policies associated with the kinds of modern social democracies prevalent in civilized countries around the world, notably things like access to health care, social services, and guarantees of personal liberties.
Specific to the context of US Republicans, however, “progressive” is basically a synonym for “traitorous communist”. So when Team Trump and their allies call Walz “progressive” and “radical”, this is what they’re trying to smear him with.
I would really prefer it if everyone used Walz’s (and Harris’s), but Americans got this wrong so early it’s now embedded as acceptable in their grammar rules. Very annoying, makes me squirm. The sole apostrophe after an _s is supposed to be for the plural s only, not just any _s word or name. The only exceptions are Biblical names.
It’s been a while, but this Canadian uses the Chicago Manual of Style, and if I recall it correctly, an apostrophe, and nothing but, after a noun that ends in S, indicates a possessive. Thus, “Harris’ supporters,” is perfectly fine.
“Trump’s supporters” is perfectly fine too. His name does not end in “s,” so the apostrophe is necessary.
I used to teach this stuff at school. As another Doper said about me when we were discussing punctuation and grammar, “Fear this man.”
You wanna nitpick punctuation and grammar? Bring it on.
I have read that hearing loss was cited as one of the reasons for Walz retiring, and that he has had corrective surgery (stapes replacement, I think) to mitigate it. Obviously I have no idea how much of his decision was based on hearing loss vs a desire not to deploy.
On the other hand, the Trump-supporting right really might not want to raise the issue of avoiding service in wartime due to a minor injury…
That article makes it sound like he was not allowed to continue serving after that enlistment was up? Does that affect the criticism that he left rather than deploy? Would he have been allowed to deploy if he had a hearing impairment and a clear end-date to his service?