What a country, what a party! Only in America could you be the vice president most “smart” folks in the party and at CNN and MSNBC want thrown off the ticket but then just hours later find that you are the party’s presidential nominee being hailed by those same people as the savior of the Democratic Party, who will save our “endangered” democracy.

Once we were told that many of her staff quit because she was a terrible boss now, we are being told over and over that she is a born leader who will save America and the world from those “weirdos” Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Despite what we were often told during the last few years, Harris was never a border czar and any claim that she was is simply Republican or Russian misinformation. The vice president’s many other duties would have precluded her taking on responsibility for the border.

The Harris campaign will probably release a paper outlining what those duties were by the end of this month around the time she will finally hold a press conference. Anyway, we all know, and a close reading of the New York Times and Washington Post will prove that all current problems, including those on the border, were the fault of the Trump administration.

While serving in the Senate, Harris was described as the most liberal member of that body. Now she is reversing her progressive positions like the banning of fracking, support for a federal job guarantee, distancing herself from the more radical elements in climate policy, and in general tailoring her positions to attract the most voters in the general election.

When the Harris campaign announced that Minnesota governor and noted combat veteran Tim Walz of Minnesota was her pick for a running mate the national print and broadcast press went wild with joy. They told us he is just your average midwestern “good old boy” who you are likely to meet at Home Depot or Walmart.

On a busy day he probably even grabs lunch at McDonalds that is when he is not at home cooking up a storm and dipping cinnamon rolls in homemade chili. Seriously, he really does that, although it seems like a waste of good cinnamon rolls and chili. Actually, he is our most radically progressive governor.

Members of the radical progressive “Squad” like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez think he is a wonderful choice. Since he took office in 2019, he increased state spending by 42% and his latest budget proposal would increase it by a further 12%. To help finance this level of spending he attempted to increase the state gasoline tax by 70%.

He aided and abetted the riots following the death of George Floyd by dithering for four days over sending in the National Guard as people were injured, or died, and property and hundreds of small businesses destroyed.

When he finally allowed them in, he was concerned that they had undergone DEI training. The governor ordered the installation of Tampon machines in boys bathrooms in Minnesota schools and after the Floyd riots ordered “Ethnic Training,” a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion like training with the goal of teaching students the importance of replacing our current flawed system of government with a new one.

During the COVID epidemic he introduced “Draconian” mask and assembly mandates and set up a hotline much like the one the Nazis did in the 1930s in Germany, where citizens could “snitch” on neighbors not complying with the mandates.

Walz has had an interesting relationship with China. It began in 1989 when, fresh out of college, he began a Harvard University volunteer program teaching American history and English at the Foshan No 1 High School in southern China. He later set up a business called Educational Adventures with his wife Gwen organizing annual summer educational trips to China. The business organized student trips for a decade with Walz making 30 trips to China during that period. The couple even spent their honeymoon there and married on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre which must have a significance, other than romantic, for them. In 1993 Walz admitted that his student trips were funded by the Chinese government.

As John Schindler, a national security analyst and writer points out “the Chinese Communists aren’t running a holiday charity for American tourists. For those communists, nothing comes without requiring a quid pro quo. It’s certain that he would have been vetted by the Ministry of State Security.”

Schindler adds that a man like Walz with an affection for China and also a part time member of the U.S. armed forces must have been a tempting target for Chinese intelligence. I have come to the sad conclusion that both Vice President Harris and Walz have a very different view of what America should be. Walz may have been raised in middle America, but he no longer reflects those values.

He better reflects the internationalist ultra-liberal values of the vice president, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and Ocasio-Cortez.

Our nation is at a crossroads. There must not be any low information voters this year.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com.