As soon as he was officially announced as a candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Volz, often hailed as the surest choice for vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, was already facing racist and nativist attacks from the far right from the dark corners of the internet.
In media speculation leading up to Harris' potential pick, Volz, a Midwesterner who once coached a high school football team, was seen as a good balance for the California vice president's bid for the White House.
Analysts believed that Volz, who is white and in his 60s, could attract voters in key states, particularly Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - one of the keys to winning the Electoral College this November. However, far-right users on Telegram, Gab, 4chan and other related social networks, often used to spread extremist propaganda, took a different approach.
The main thrust of the early attacks focused on the conspiracy theory that Volz had altered the Minnesota state flag to resemble the Somali flag. "Misplaced Minnesota flag with Somali flag, loves Somalis coming to America by plane," read an anonymous post on the 4Chan forum, alongside a picture of Volco at a press conference.
"Timi Somali changed the country's flag to look African, hahaha," read another post on the same site, which was published after the news that Volz was chosen as Harris' running mate. "The guy is a total weakling. This is a worse choice for vice president than even Vance," it added.
This rhetoric stems from Volz's unveiling of Minnesota's new flag last December. The 1957 version was criticized for its overt depiction of an Indian being forced to leave the country at gunpoint. The new design partially features a blue background with a white star - an allusion to the official state motto "Star of the North" - which also happens to be on the Somali flag.
"Team Volc is the perfect choice to sell you to the hordes," wrote one Telegram channel with more than 15.000 followers, posting a video of Volc and the new flags in the post.
As Somalia's brutal civil war continued into the 1990s, Minnesota became a destination for many Somali immigrants, who established a wealthy and successful community. Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, born in Mogadishu, was part of that wave of immigration fleeing violence.
But of course, the more than 85.000 Somalis in the nation of nearly seven million have been the target of racist attacks by neo-Nazis, nativists and far-right commentators of all stripes in recent years.
"This is Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is not Mogadishu," read one post with more than a thousand views on a neo-Nazi-sympathizing Telegram channel, alongside photos of a colorful Somali festival in Minneapolis, similar to the annual Italian festivals in every major American city.
More prominent Republicans have begun to adopt this racist rhetoric about Somalia when it comes to Volco. Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump, appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and said the Democratic nominee would "turn the entire Midwest into Mogadishu."
On Gab, a fringe right-wing X-like platform, an image circulated showing a caricature of Harris and Volc carrying a Somali flag, while others focused mostly on Volc leading the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that began in his country after the police killed George Floyd.
"Minneapolis before and after Gov. Tim Volz allowed BLM to destroy the city," wrote one Gab user, posting images purportedly showing buildings in Minneapolis that were untouched before the protests.
Volz's Middle American, folksy appeal was undoubtedly the main reason Harris and her team decided to include him. He is a contrast to Donald Trump's candidate: Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who emphasizes his working-class background and Appalachian roots in every public appearance.
Vance and far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, who often makes anti-Semitic and racist statements as a spokeswoman for extremist branches of the Republican Party, immediately mentioned the BLM protests in their attacks on Volz.
Vance accused Volz of allowing "rioters to burn Minneapolis," while Green said similarly "he didn't do anything while Minneapolis was burning." It is certain that the Republicans will attack him in a similar way in the coming months.
"The expected right-wing attacks on Volz will be pretty predictable," said Amarnath Amarasingam, an expert on extremism and a professor at Queen's University in Canada, who has studied the rise of the far right since the Trump presidency.
Amarasingam explained that there is an underlying racial component to Volz's candidacy that is sure to inflame the far right and be part of the implicit attacks against him in mainstream Republican circles.
"American politics is now so tribal that the same reasons Volz is attractive to the Harris campaign will be the reasons the right sees him as 'un-American,'" Amarasingam added.
He also pointed out that, in addition to Volco's role in the covid pandemic, LGBTQ+ and trans rights will certainly be topics of conversation.
"The predictable lines of the culture war — immigration, equality, gender fluidity, race — will be used as insults and accusations: he waited too long to call in the National Guard against BLM protests, his state was too restrictive during the covid pandemic, and so on. When there are no verifiable political decisions to attack, conspiracy theories will take their place - such as the idea that he changed the country's flag to resemble Somalia's because immigrants are taking over the country," the expert said.
Another thing on which criticism of Volz is based among Republicans is... tampons? Volz supported a law that took effect this year in Minnesota that requires tampons to be installed in boys' and girls' restrooms in public schools.
The hashtag, "TamponTim," was trending on Xu among right-wing circles for much of Tuesday. On Gab, a mime is circulating that calls Volca "Tampon Tim" and shows an edited photo of him menstruating through his jeans.
Carolyn Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, wasted no time appearing on Fox News just hours after Volz was announced to criticize the vice presidential candidate and his political record. "As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support sex-reassignment surgery on minors, who support putting tampons in men's restrooms in public schools," she said in a spirited speech.
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