The governor doth project too much

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

It evinces a sad era in American political rhetoric that by just using the common adjective “weird” to describe the opposition, Democrats declared Gov. Tim Walz a communications mastermind and elevated him onto the presidential ticket. My, how our national discourse has descended since the days of Reagan, Roosevelt and Lincoln.

A while ago, a mentor of mine introduced me to the refrain: You spot it, you got it. How true it is that those characteristics we tend to criticize in others are often those things we see in ourselves.

So when Walz calls Republicans like me “weird,” could it be that he sees that in his own party too? When he rails at the GOP ticket as “extreme,” could he perceive it, too, on his own? The record would support that he should.

The Democratic trifecta has certainly subjected us Minnesotans to plenty of weirdness. During a midday event last year sanctioned by the governor’s office and held in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda, the audience, which included children, was treated to an erotic drag queen performance atop the state’s historic marble star. North Star State government has become so weirdly woke under Gov. Walz that it erased Minnesota’s founding date — 1858 — from the new official state seal out of social hypersensitivities. And in a scene straight out of the series Fargo, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan attended an official signing ceremony for an executive order wearing a T-shirt with a knife emblazoned on the front of it. Political passion can be a good thing, but not when associated with weaponry. It doesn’t get a whole lot weirder than this stuff.

As for extremism, while the Harris-Walz team are moderate in temperament and charismatic in style, there is nothing middle of the road about either of their ideas or records.

Both the vice president and Minnesota governor have little interest in protecting American sovereignty and addressing the border crisis folks on all sides want solved. Kamala Harris has favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings altogether and the closing of immigration detention centers, while we Minnesotans know Gov. Walz signed legislation that enables illegal immigrants here to be eligible for driver’s licenses, a free college tuition program and subsidized health insurance benefits, making Minnesota a sanctuary state of heavenly proportions.

As for the historic inflation that has been a brushfire through the pocketbooks of low- and middle-income Americans, the Democratic ticket proposes — and yes, this is serious — national rent and price controls as the solution. Instead of cutting back on the excessive federal spending that has created too many dollars chasing too few goods and thus price hikes, the vice president is proposing we adopt the economic policies of socialist and impoverished Venezuela. This idea is as extreme as it is economically illiterate. And scary.

While reducing our country’s carbon-dioxide emissions is a noble goal, the record indicates a Harris-Walz administration would embrace extreme energy policies mainstream voters should be concerned about. As a U.S. senator, Harris not only supported but co-sponsored the Green New Deal, which mandates that 100% of American power is sourced through “zero-emission” energy sources within only a decade, the rebuild of most existing building infrastructure and a complete overhaul of the U.S. transportation system — at a price tag of around $93 trillion according to one estimate, nearly four times the entire American gross domestic product. And here in Minnesota, Gov. Walz has required our utilities to supply 100% carbon-free energy by just 2040, a draconian regulation that will lead to an average annual bump of $1,642 in electricity bills for families and expose our power grid to likely dead-of-winter blackouts in years to come, according to an analysis by the Center of the American Experiment.

Even on difficult and deeply personal cultural issues, where good people can fall on opposite sides and sensible and decent compromise should be able to be found, a Harris-Walz administration would be far afield of most voters. While the Democratic presidential ticket contends to support “reproductive health care rights,” a refrain tough to disagree with, it opposes all rights for the innocent unborn whatsoever. Let’s remember that the vice president visited Minnesota in March with the sole reason to celebrate Gov. Walz for legalizing abortion — for absolutely any reason — right up to the moment of birth. Thanks to our governor’s heartless advocacy against unborn life, Minnesota now has abortion laws akin to those in North Korea and China. While even my self-described pro-choice friends are concerned by that, Harris certainly is not.

I’ll admit that we Republicans make ourselves easy targets for being labeled weird and extreme when we nominate unhinged statewide candidates like Royce White or when Donald Trump issues those midnight stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Truth Social. But amid a fawning media and a well-produced convention, moderate voters should be clear minded that there is absolutely nothing measured when it comes to the policy substance of the Harris-Walz ticket — nor would there be about their White House.