Tim Walz and the ‘Folksy’ Science Behind Sounding All-American
If you created a word cloud from all Tim Walz’s interviews over the last few weeks, the word ‘weird’ would be featured prominently, as would ‘football,’ ‘Minnesota,’ and maybe ‘white guy tacos.’ But one word above all would stand out among the vice presidential candidate's vernacular: ‘folksy.’
Walz’s supporters use that term: A tweet from screenwriter Adam Best praising the native-Nebraskan’s “organic, folksy, straightforward vibe,” for example, got 25,000 likes. His detractors use it, too. Glenn Beck railed against the idea that he was the “most folksy dad ever.”
The descriptor may seem spontaneous. But like ‘aw-shucks’ with Reagan and ‘malarkey’ with Biden, such phrases—and their intention—are not entirely off-the-cuff. They are part of a concentrated effort, going back to Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, to create an American brand of English.