The upper Midwest had its moment to shine at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Michigan and Wisconsin have a strong chance of becoming swing states. And with Minnesota governor Tim Walz as Vice President Kamala HarrisAs Clinton’s running mate, Democrats have been happy to seize the opportunity to argue that the party can infuse a kind of down-home American culture that many say they have lost touch with in recent years.
“We are starting the MAMMA movement,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told the crowd at a breakfast hosted by the Michigan delegation. “Let’s make America come back to Michigan and Minnesota!”
Then she played along this line Keillor Garrison was once used weekly to end a segment called News from Lake Wobegon—the fictional Minnesota town Keillor described in his radio comedy and fiction stories. A companion on the prairie. “All the women are strong,” Klobuchar said, “all the men are handsome, and all the vice presidents are above average!”
Prairie Home Companion went off the air in 2016. In 2017, Minnesota Public Radio severed ties with Keillor because “inappropriate behavior” at work, which he said at the time was a “more complicated” story. Minnesota Public Radio CEO Jon McTaggart said after the investigation that Keillor’s public comments were not “absolutely correct.” Asked in 2022 if he had crossed the line, Keillor told CBS, “Obviously I did.” For a time, the archives of Prairie Home Companion were disconnected, although they were re-supplied after Keillor and MPR reached an agreement. agreement.
For those of us who grew up with the show, this is a development that is hard to accept. A companion at Prairie Home, Through musical acts and variety shows, generations of NPR-listening liberals were introduced to ballads and anecdotes drawn from a deep well of American folklore. In this deeply divided country, one that is supposedly built on constitutional ideals rather than deep national heritage or history, there is no official repository for these songs and stories, and no government agency charged with preserving our cultural memory. They are passed down organically, or not passed down at all.
The selection of Walz has lit up the DNC and hash, to a degree that seemed unimaginable just weeks ago. The selection has provided a direct counterpoint to the selection of JD Vance EQUAL Donald Trumphis running mate: Democrats have tried to color Vance’s story of rising from poverty to Yale Law School, which he tells in his memoir, The ballad of the mountain people, as less “Real,” the narrative often played out, rather than Walz’s own story of teaching high school and coaching football in a small Midwestern town. The accessory of the moment, worn by officials on the convention floor and by teams of young women at the “Hotties for Harris” party, was a Walz-inspired camouflage cap. The cap, inspired by Walz’s own love of hunting, was a carefully crafted message, in the way Walz once described today’s Republicans as “weird,” and suggested that Democrats were suddenly the party that spoke to the values of ordinary Americans. It’s a message-driven theme, but it suggests that Democrats are beginning to realize that they need to confront questions about globalization, the hollowing out of small-town America, and the deindustrialization of areas like the upper Midwest that have left many in the camouflage-clad regions of America disillusioned with the whole liberal project and disdainful of the Democratic Party.
So from the stairs at the United Center, as the nominations for Harris and Walz were being announced, I called Keillor, who continues to tour and perform at age 82, to ask about Walz.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Vanity Fair: So I have my own theory that something happened in America when Prairie Home Companion has since gone off the air. For me, growing up, it was a show that represented a libertarianism that was still rooted in a kind of local tradition, and involved song and story of small-town Americana. But it still fit into a liberal, inclusive vision.
Chief Keillor: You know, I still do shows, solo shows, and I travel around and play in theaters. And people get very emotional when I remember when I was in school and we all sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” I don’t think that’s a common song in school anymore, but that’s not my problem.
