Wednesday. 7/8/2024
The Monocle Minute
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Shaking it up: Tim Walz greets Kamala Harris in Minnesota
Image: Getty ImagesPolitics / Sasha Issenberg
Kamala Harris’s choice of running mate is a win for progressives. But will it be enough to give her a decisive electoral advantage?
Tim Walz, the Democrats’ new vice-presidential nominee, looks as though he was produced in a laboratory to address the party’s Trump-era struggles with working-class white men. Minnesota’s formerly little-known 60-year-old governor was educated at Chadron State College (just about as far from an Ivy League education as you can get), served as an Army National Guard officer and worked as a high-school teacher and football coach. He won a seat in the House of Representatives from a largely rural district and spent 12 years in Congress before running for governor in 2018.
Walz has kept a lower profile than many fellow Democratic governors but has assembled a governing record that dwarfs that of his more mediagenic peers, including California’s Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer. During his time in office, he has pushed through a progressive policy agenda, delivering free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren and paid sick leave for state employees. These types of safety-net expansions made him a favourite among the party’s left-wing to become Kamala Harris’s running mate.
In Walz, Harris has picked someone who complements her in terms of demography, geography and style – a case of big-city prosecutor meets coarse small-town sidekick – but does not antagonise any part of the Democratic coalition that she needs to hold together. Walz was perhaps her safest option – and the one best positioned to navigate Congress with her should she win the election. But a presidential nominee can only anticipate a fraction of what will be asked of their running mate. Over the past month, Harris has learned this lesson better than anyone.
Sasha Issenberg is Monocle’s US politics correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
The Briefings
Red signal: A student controls the traffic as police go on strike in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Image: Getty ImagesPOLITICS / BANGLADESH
Hopes for an end to unrest in Bangladesh as Nobel laureate leads interim government
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will lead an interim government in Bangladesh following the dissolution of the country’s parliament and the subsequent fleeing of its prime minister, Sheikh Hasina. Elections are expected to be announced in due course and leaders of anti-government student protests – which defied a curfew and forced Hasina’s resignation on Monday, after 15 years in power – have been defiant against an originally proposed military-led administration.
“This interim government will eventually hand over power to democratically elected representatives,” Redwan Ahmed, a Dhaka-based journalist, told The Globalist on Monocle Radio. “The army has been trying to balance both a peaceful solution and a conversation with the political parties.” Student leaders have supported Yunus’s nominations but it is critical that his appointment serves to calm the political unrest in Bangladesh, which has seen hundreds of casualties over the past month.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP / GREECE
Syros’s next generation of business owners is putting its capital back on the map
A new wave of entrepreneurs is revitalising Hermoupolis, on Greek island Syros, keeping the city’s reputation as a trade hub alive and well. On Monocle’s recent visit, we met Sandy Karagianni, who opened homeware shop Motif with her husband, Pericles, in 2022. From their sunny premises, they sell hand-crafted pieces from Greece and beyond, including ceramic bowls from the island of Serifos.
Artisanal gelato from Django and Sandy Karagianni’s rescue dog, Dingo
Vaporia, Hermoupolis’s main bathing spot, and Ersi Varveri (on left) and Gijs Waterschoot from Pink House Press
Karagianni had been living in Athens and working as a photography and fashion editor before deciding to trade the bustle of the Greek capital for island life. Manos Mastorakis, another shop-owner in Hermoupolis, gave up his corporate job in Athens to open ceramics shop-cum-gallery Chimera. “Most islands turn into ghost towns over the winter but there’s life here all year,” says Mastorakis. “There’s also an interesting international community that lives here permanently.” If you’re looking to set up a new venture, then Syros, which boasts easy 35-minute connections to Athens via its own airport, could be the right spot.
For our full report on the industrious islanders of Syros, pick up a copy of the‘Monocle Mediterraneo Newspaper’, which is out now.
ART / LONDON
Dutch art institution Moco Museum brings its contemporary cool to London
Moco Museum will open the doors to its new location, in London’s Marble Arch, on Saturday. Founded by Kim Logchies-Prins and her husband, Lionel, in 2016, Moco Museum has been quick to attract a diverse clientele to its existing outposts in Amsterdam and Barcelona, not least from younger generations drawn to Moco’s editorial approach. “I have an eye for what’s trending,” Kim Logchies-Prins tells The Monocle Minute. “I see so many fashion brands and DJs collaborating with visual artists and I try to show that.” Along with its permanent collection of works from the likes of Banksy, Yayoi Kusama and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the London site will host temporary collections, starting from 11 September with Marina Abramovic’s new solo exhibition, Healing Frequency. “A lot of our new artists are part of a movement offering solutions and new ways of thinking in art,” says Logchies-Prins. “People are inspired by that.”
For more on Moco Museum’s new opening in London, tune in to Tuesday’s edition of ‘The Globalist’ on Monocle Radio.
Beyond the Headlines
The list / Paris
Golden year: Four reasons why Paris’s Olympic summer is a podium-topper
As many of Monocle Radio’s guests in Paris have confirmed, the French in general – and Parisians in particular – have spent years resenting the imposition of the Olympics and convincing themselves that the whole thing will be an expensive, embarrassing shambles. It has proved very much otherwise. Here are four observations from our team on the ground.
1. Paris is really, really quiet
Paris traditionally empties this time of year, as locals give way to the tourists. This summer, however, even more Parisians than usual seem to have left and fewer tourists than usual seem to have shown up, many perhaps postponing to a non-Olympics year. As a consequence, the city’s glorious boulevards are even more saunterable than usual.
2. Even the police are friendly
Notably, even the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) are friendly. The CRS are the public order brigades usually deployed when the boulangerie furniture starts flying and have never cultivated a reputation for affability. However, the CRS have been policing the Olympic crowds with almost eerie good cheer: Monocle’s team has witnessed one outright jovial arrest and even heard reports of directions being ungrudgingly offered in English.
3. Everything works
If there has been significant disruption, we haven’t seen it, beyond having to rejig strolling routes around barricades erected for the cycling road races. The Metro and the buses have turned up on the dot. Even amid 80,000 people, decanting from the Stade de France after a session of athletics was a stress-free endeavour: we were sitting down for lunch in the 3rd arrondissement within the hour.
4. A hero emerges
At the Tokyo Olympics, France won fewer medals than Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Great Britain, which must have hurt. But the French are having a fine home Games; none finer than Léon Marchand, the 22-year-old Toulouse torpedo, who has won four gold medals and one bronze in the pool and acquired instant national-hero status. Political cartoonists are suggesting that Emmanuel Macron’s search for a unifying figure to serve as prime minister should go no further.
Monocle Radio / Monocle on Culture
Summer films: ‘Agent of Happiness’, ‘Daughters’ and ‘Kneecap’
In our summer film special, we find out about three great big-screen releases. We hear about a happiness agent in the Bhutanese Himalayas in Agent of Happiness, explore the moving new Netflix film Daughters and jump into the chaotic world of an Irish-language rapping group in Kneecap.
