Vice President Kamala Harris has announced that Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) will be her running mate in the 2024 Presidential Election. The American people are about to face the third round of left-wing media manipulation in this election. The first round was a battle to hide President Joe Biden’s declining cognitive abilities–the truth won that round. The second round is the battle to make Vice President Harris likeable and competent–we are living through it right now. The next few weeks will be round three – an all-out effort to make Gov. Walz seem like a Minnesota-Nice moderate. Here is the truth: Governor Tim Walz is a Far-Left Democrat.
It is essential to get a basic understanding of Minnesota politics. Minnesota is a microcosm of America in the Trump era. Republicans in Minnesota have been running up their margins in rural farming communities (Greater Minnesota), breaking into blue-collar strongholds in the north and taking a beating in the suburbs. In each election, they try to portray themselves as the economically sensible party that will govern all of Minnesota, not just the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (the Metro). Yet, they have not won a statewide race since Tim Pawlenty won the governorship in 2006. They are seen as well-educated, practical, and, most importantly, nice, which is essential to winning the state.
On the other hand, we find the Democrats, or rather the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). Farmers are not voting for them, and fewer and fewer blue-collar laborers are with every election. Nevertheless, the party’s name is a crucial part of the strategy that contributes to Democratic dominance of the state – the bait and switch. This strategy is personified in Governor. Tim Walz. Here is how it works:
First, we need the bait. Before running for Governor, Tim Walz was the Representative for Minnesota’s 1st District from 2007 to 2019. The 1st District is in southeastern Minnesota, whose largest city is Rochester, with a population around 121,000. It is part of what Minnesotans call “Greater Minnesota”. In order to maintain his seat that long, he had to campaign and vote as a moderate. He highlighted his long service in the National Guard, had a bipartisan voting record, and kept his rhetoric focused on his rural voters. That made him a juicy worm to land the Governor’s race in 2018.
Walz beat his primary opponents by portraying himself as the candidate to govern “Together for One Minnesota.” He beat the State Attorney General and Majority Leader of the State House by appearing detached from the liberal policies of the Metro Democrats. His choice for Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, was also a safe choice. She was a little-known State Representative of Native American heritage who had little record to run against and a dash of diversity to run on.
The Wayback Machine allows us to view the campaign website and remember the agenda of a “moderate” Tim Walz. He ran on a platform with agriculture at the top of “Our Agenda.” His economic plans were around education, infrastructure, and tax breaks. He paid his dues to the liberal base by mentioning their priorities – unions, climate change, gun violence, racial equity, and LGBTQ+ individuals. However, each area was couched with a reminder of his supposed moderation. Unions were a path to the middle class. Climate change was an issue that farmers would take the lead on. He was a lifelong outdoorsman who only wanted common-sense gun control. Racial equity was just another appeal for unity among all Minnesotans, and his LGBTQ+ policies were about protecting kids from bullies and conversion therapy quacks. Abortion? You will find that in the final statement at the bottom of the Health Care page. He is a former teacher, soldier, and moderate Congressman. Wouldn’t you want him to be your Governor?
The fish took the bait. The Metro elites practically jumped into the boat. The urban minorities were casually scooped up in the net. The real victory was snagging the suburban women and enough of the rural vote to win the Governor’s mansion. Then, it was time for the switch.
Governor Walz faced two massive challenges in his first term. First, the COVID-19 pandemic started in late 2019. Second, George Floyd’s death in May 2020 and the subsequent riots. How did this moderate respond? With radical incompetence.
Governor Walz was on the side of radical restrictions in every COVID-era policy. Masks were mandated from July 22, 2020, to May 14, 2021. Businesses deemed “non-essential” were threatened with bankruptcy via fines for nearly a full year. He kept people from their loved ones by banning gatherings from November 2020 to the vaccine rollout around April and May 2021. He backed an eviction moratorium, kept the kids masked, and bullied people to get themselves and their children vaccinated. Furthermore, those who sought vaccination were subject to his administration’s vaccine program which promised to “Promote justice: Respect people and groups and promote solidarity and mutual responsibility,” and “Mitigate health inequities: Strive for fairness and protect against systematic unfairness and inequity,” in vaccine allocations. In other words, your skin color could be considered in whether or not you got a vaccine. He only had to look at neighboring states like Iowa or South Dakota for evidence that a better way was possible.
The Governor chose the most extreme policies and refused to correct course when new evidence was presented, but his behavior was in line with the average Democratic governor throughout COVID. Perhaps he could be excused by the unique nature of the pandemic. Yet, the events surrounding George Floyd’s death were not especially unique, and he performed even worse. George Floyd died on May 25, 2020. Three days later, the Governor began to bring the National Guard to Minneapolis and St. Paul. That did not end the rioting. His delay in bringing them in led to the 3rd Police Precinct being surrendered and burnt to the ground earlier on that same day.Acts of violence and looting were permitted to continue for five full days until the National Guard was fully mobilized through the night of Saturday, May 30. Riots spread throughout the Metro area and into the suburbs. One estimate put the damages at $550 million.
The same Governor that put out a tip line for COVID violators gave these massive gatherings the equivalent of a light pat on the hand. He had campaigned as a moderate but governed as a radical progressive. Governor Walz fully took off the mask in 2022.
The 2022 reelection campaign touted a very different Tim Walz than the candidate of 2018. His campaign website puts the nail in the coffin that holds his moderate image. He ran that campaign on his “Accomplishments” rather than his previous campaign’s, “Agenda.” What were his accomplishments?
The Walz economy is one in which he “balanced every budget while cutting taxes, adding money to the state’s rainy-day fund” and had a tax bill that “includes over a billion dollars in tax relief and tax forgiveness for businesses and individuals who needed help during the pandemic.” He reminds Minnesotans that he set up the Governor’s Council on Economic Expansion and pays lip service to farmers by bringing up the Governor’s Biofuel Council.
In reality, Republican control of the State Senate forced him to limit his spending. Minnesota has approximately $72 billion in debt and billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. You would think he could have paid that off with the highest state-level corporate income tax at 9.8% and the fourth highest average income tax at 7.46%. Minnesotans would also begin to lose their child tax credit if they and their spouse made more than $35,000 annually. Obviously, Minnesota businesses wouldn’t have needed his assistance if he would have simply let them open. The two councils he set up aren’t reassuring either.
The former’s website reeks of race essentialism saying its mission is to “catalyze progress toward an equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient economy.” The latter one recommends that the state government mandate greater use of ethanol to reduce emissions. Someone ought to let him know that you have to use more energy to make ethanol than you get out of using it.
On the issue of education – one he is supposedly passionate about since he was a former teacher – Walz wants “major investments in summer learning programs to ensure that students statewide stay up to speed on their education despite the pandemic.” It must irk Minnesotans to have a former teacher as Governor and watch him put their kids at a disadvantage because he refused to accept the evidence that children were at essentially no risk from COVID-19.
Mr. Walz portrays himself as a law-and-order leader by highlighting legislative success to “ensure law enforcement wear body cameras, limits on no-knock warrants, and bans on chokeholds and “warrior-style” training.” He gets interestingly specific in remarks about “[cracking] down on carjackings, street racing, gun violence, and crime,” and closes the section with the statement, “Tim and Peggy are committed to creating safer communities for all Minnesotans and advancing police reform without defunding or abolishing the police.” Methinks the Governor doth protest too much.
These are the policies of a governor who watched his capital city burn, stood by as crime skyrocketed throughout the urban and suburban areas of the Twin Cities, and now claims that he is all about safe communities. Is it any wonder Minnesota has seen record numbers of officers retire and cannot find willing replacements?
Finally, he gets comfortable in his progressive skin by highlighting abortion and climate change. Tim and Peggy promise “An abortion ban will never become law on their watch[,]” they will “use all legal discretion to decline to extradite people who are charged under other states’ laws that criminalize providing, seeking, or obtaining an abortion[,]” and promise above all to “fight to protect reproductive rights, including the right to a safe and legal abortion.” The Governor saves the best for last when he says, “[We] are pushing for 100% of Minnesota’s electricity to come from renewable energy by the year 2040,” and proudly proclaims that their environmental initiative will “require Minnesota car dealers to offer consumers more choices of electric vehicles.”
You may take note that there isn’t a mention of limiting abortion at any point. In 2023, Mr. Walz signed legislation making Minnesota one of the most extreme states with almost no limits on the killing of the unborn. Amendments to the law, including one to prohibit third-trimester abortions except for saving the mother’s life, were rejected. The energy policy is not any more moderate. According to USA Today, Minnesotans pay higher average energy costs than neighbors Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota while paying slightly less than Wisconsin. The Governor wants to change the source of 59% of Minnesota’s energy (depending on how he views nuclear power) and have more people driving electric cars. Someone ought to remind him that Minnesota is extremely cold for much of the year and is plenty hot for the rest of it. Just in January of this year, the damage to electric vehicles by the cold made headlines. People were left waiting in long lines for chargers that were not working. If they found one that did work, it could take 45 minutes to charge the car. Nevertheless, Governor Walz wants to mandate them.
The cherry on top of Walz’s Far-Left policies is how he views the mutilation of children, or what he might call “gender-affirming care.” According to Minnesota Public Radio, Governor Walz signed an executive order preventing state authorities from complying with out-of-state requests to stop a child from receiving the medications or procedures used in these barbaric practices. He later signed a bill which codified Minnesota’s “sanctuary” status into law. Once again, the governor demonstrates a complete lack of moderation. He simply poses for a photo-op with a six-year-old child who will be rendered sterile if they proceed down their current path.
It should be clear that Governor Tim Walz is not moderate. His moderation was the bait that propelled him into the Governor’s mansion. The media will now attempt to bait the voting public into voting him into the Vice Presidency. You must remember that no matter how moderate the worm looks, you must look for the progressive hook he is wriggling on.
