Tim Walz is the most radical candidate ever to seek national office on a major party ticket
His education policies prove it.
“‘Socialist’ vs. social studies teacher: GOP, Democrats battle to define Walz.” That’s the title of this article that appeared in the Washington Post soon after Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz to be her running mate.
Talk about a false choice. The Post is pretending that there’s a wide gap between being a socialist and a social studies teacher. There isn’t.
Not all social studies teachers are socialists, of course. I assume that most still aren’t.
But to learn that someone is a social studies teacher is to increase the likelihood that this person is a socialist. And to learn that he teaches social studies in Minnesota is to nudge that likelihood higher, still.
Finally, to learn about the educational policies the Minnesota social studies teacher implemented once he became governor is to leave no doubt that he’s a man of the far left.
Stanley Kurtz discusses Walz’s education policies here, in a harrowing article called “Tim Walz, Education Radical.” If anything, this title understates the case.
Stanley begins:
If someone asked me to name the most radical state education standards in the country, I’d point to Minnesota. I did just that last year when I singled out Rhode Island, Illinois, and Minnesota as the embodiments of our “Blue State Education Nightmare.” Truly, Minnesota is the worst of the lot. . . .
Stanley proceeds to tell us why.
In 2021, in the wake of the George Floyd demonstrations and riots, Governor Walz introduced what he called his “Due North” education plan, featuring funding for a major ethnic-studies initiative. With Republicans in control of the state senate, Walz’s initiative went nowhere. After Democrats took control of both legislative houses in 2022, however, Walz’s ethnic-studies proposal took off.
What is “ethnic-studies”?
Ethnic studies — especially the brand of it Tim Walz has brought to Minnesota — is race-based neo-Marxism. Essentially, ethnic studies is a kind of anti-civics in which students are taught to reject and replace America’s system of government.
For years, ethnic studies programs were confined to colleges and universities. However, in the latter part of the last decade, California created a high school ethnic-studies course, with a model curriculum designed by a committee of ethnic-studies professors and like-minded K–12 teachers.
The model curriculum released in 2019 was, according to Williamson Evers, an education expert and prominent critic, “revolutionary anti-capitalist propaganda.” The draft was filled with critical race theory and held up militant and violent revolutionaries as models for students to follow. California’s draft ethnic-studies curriculum also defined the campaign to boycott Israel as a “global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions.”
(Emphasis added)
Minnesota has adopted a radical leftist version of ethnic studies, a version closely allied with California’s original Liberated Ethnic Studies. Worse:
Not only has Minnesota made ethnic studies a required part of classroom instruction, it has mandated the infusion of radical ethnic-studies ideology into every required subject, even math and science. . . .
In other words, even California’s Newsom hasn’t gone as far as Minnesota’s Walz. Newsom vetoed California’s original ethnic-studies bill to force at least a modest rewrite of the radical curriculum. That, and some other features of the California approach, gave individual school districts at least a degree of flexibility. Walz, in contrast, has embraced the radical approach, imposed it on every district, infused it into every subject, and handed power to the most extreme curricular radicals in the state — counterparts and allies of the very group that Newsom has labored keep in check.
Blue states that have made ethnic studies a mere elective don’t begin to compare. Walz takes the prize for education radicalism, no contest.
(Emphasis added)
Moreover:
In 2022, Walz even moved to incorporate ethnic studies into the “knowledge and skills” listed in the state’s “compulsory attendance law.” That would have forced ethnic studies on even private schools and homeschoolers, an overreach that leaves Gavin Newsom in the dust. The ethnic-studies mandate for private schools and homeschoolers was removed in later drafts, but the effort gives you some sense of where Walz is coming from.
(Emphasis added)
In sum:
This is what Tim Walz has unleashed in Minnesota—the teaching of a radical ideology that consciously rejects the legitimacy of America’s system. Minnesota now has the most radical education regime of any state that I know of. That regime was adopted at the behest of Tim Walz, under false pretenses of moderation. That sort of bait and switch is exactly what we have to fear on this and a great many other issues from the Harris-Walz ticket in 2024.
If the Democrats went to central casting to find a white guy who comes across as a friendly, reasonable, and non-threatening Midwesterner, but who, in reality, is the most radical leftist ever to seek national office on a major party ticket, central casting would have sent them the socialist former social studies teacher from Minnesota.
In effect, Kamala Harris did go to central casting to find that white guy. By doing so, she has made a case that she’s the most radical leftist ever to seek the presidency on a major party ticket, edging out Barack Obama for that dubious distinction.
The most insidious thing about all of this is that the radical left has largely succeeded in moving the Overton Window of what is considered mainstream further and further left. The Democratic party has been slowly boiled into radicalism and things that would have shocked even the left of the party 30 years ago is now mainstream. And yet...the public at large including many Democrats who would oppose these things, doesn't care. They care about the economy and perhaps illegal immigration and for some, ensuring that someone like Trump doesn't get back in office.
To the extent that the Republicans campaign on how radical Tim Walz is, they will be losing the opportunity to give these voters reason to support them on the issues they care about. Its a trap.
If actually goaded by the press to state her positions, Harris might turn out to be more radical, but I fear that's not happening ...