Is anything, even the most minute detail, in Tim Walz‘s political-facing biography true or at least not a severe embellishment? This question is starting to percolate in Americans’ minds as more information is unearthed, suggesting that aspects of Walz’s military career, his time as a high school football coach, and his ‘everyman‘ Midwesterner image are all just figments and daydreams. Tim Walz is this election cycle’s Walter Mitty.

Walter Mitty was the meek and mild-mannered main character in a 1939 James Thurber short story for the New Yorker. Later made in a 1947 movie and 2013 remake starring Ben Stiller, the story centers on a man who spins heroic and fantastical tales regarding the alternative lives he may have led. Mitty concocts daydreams of serving as a fighter pilot, a doctor, and a hitman for hire. In reality, he was none of these things.

Much like Walter Mitty, Tim Walz has spun stories for voters for years, with the embellishments and falsehoods only coming to a head now that he is Kamala Harris‘s 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee. From a high school football championship to military service in combat to even his ‘everyman’ Midwesterner schtick, there are shreds of truth in each story, but the most exciting and inspiring details are fabrications.

ABOUT THAT FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP. 

One of Walz‘s more common—and perhaps minor—embellishments is the lingering perception he’s allowed others to have that he is a high school football championship-winning coach. The fact is, however, Walz was not the coach of the team.

According to new reports and documents from the time, Tim Walz was only the defense coordinator—an assistant coach—for the Mankato West High School football team. While the team did win a state championship, it wasn’t Walz who led that team as their head coach.

Embellishments about sports records, championships, playing time, and game details are fairly common around the world and something of a mainstay in America’s Midwest. However, with Walz, the embellishments do not stop with the events of a young high school teacher and football coach from decades ago.

WALZ GOES TO WAR BUT ACTUALLY DOESN’T.

Much like Mitty—who concocted elaborate stories of being a brave and daring fighter pilot—Tim Walz’s embellishments regarding his military career seem to allude to a greater desire to have made an impact on the world. Both the fictional Mitty—and the very real Walz—however, seem to have lacked the fortitude to actually have faced real combat.

Despite Walz’s own claims and allusions to having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Minnesota Democrat—in reality—only ever saw the shores of Italy. In fact, once Walz found out his National Guard unit would be called up in 2005 for service in Iraq, he abruptly retired from the military and ran for Congress instead.

The lack of actual combat experience or service in a hostile theater of war hasn’t stopped Walz from giving voters the perception that he has. During the 2008 election, Walz was photographed holding a sign that stated, “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry!” The only problem is that Walz isn’t a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, which was the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Instead, Walz and his guardsmen unit served in Italy in a support role for the operation, but not actually a part of it, having never set foot in Afghanistan.

In addition, Walz has repeatedly used a line in support of gun control, declaring: “We can make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war are only carried in war.” The problem for Walz, however, is that he never carried a weapon of war in war. Throughout his nearly three decades in the National Guard, Walz never once set foot in an actual war zone.

INFLATING PERCEPTIONS. 

Walz has also been criticized for wearing a camouflage ballcap bearing the Green Beret crest. In the U.S. military, it is often frowned upon for servicemen to wear the patches or symbols of units in which they never served. In Walz’s case, he did serve in the Minnesota Army National Guard, but he never served as a member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, colloquially known as the “Green Berets.”

In addition, the Kamala Harris campaign has been forced to correct its own misconceptions about Walz’s record. A Harris campaign press release identified Walz as the former chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee—a fact they had to correct since Walz only ever serves as a ranking member.

Lying by omission, though, has been the mainstay of Walz’s fantastical biography. In a departure from Walter Mitty’s daydreams, Walz genuinely leads his supporters and others to believe he’s accomplished so much in his life—though he very rarely makes definitive claims outright.

NOBODY’S ‘EVERYMAN.’

The final, and perhaps most powerful, figment surrounding Walz is that he is a salt-of-the-earth Midwest ‘everyman.’

While it is true that he’s one of the few Democrats—perhaps outside Senator John Fetterman (D-PA)—who looks comfortable and plausibly normal wearing shorts and a T-shirt, Walz’s image as just a normal Midwestern dad is far from reality.

Unlike most Midwest and Rust Belt fathers, Walz never ran a business or worked long in the private sector. His entire career has been spent working for the government, either as a teacher or as a politician. His politics, despite a pivot to the middle while in Congress, are rooted in the far left.

As a young man in Nebraska, Walz developed a reputation as “a bit of a loudmouth” and a political radical. He and his wife honeymooned in Communist China and, subsequently, the Minnesota Democrat has made almost annual trips to the country. In the governor’s office in Minnesota, Walz worked to develop close economic ties between the state and China—a country most Midwesterners see as a hostile actor that has stolen millions of American jobs. Instead of pursuing a pro-working-class agenda, Walz has pushed job-destroying radical environmentalism and family-destroying abortion and transgender policies.

In the end, Walz’s ‘id’ isn’t that of a populist ‘everyman.’ Rather, it is the ego of a radical, progressive technocrat. To hide this truth, Walz has allowed fantastical narratives about his life to spill out into the real world through omission and lack of correction.

Much like Walter Mitty, insinuation and allusion have led many to falsely conclude that Walz, the war hero, and Walz, the football champion, are the real Tim Walz. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.