Tim Walz' "Mind Your Own Damn Business" line at his Philly debut sent Democrats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- into paroxysms of delight. It's about to backfire on all of them, including Kamala Harris, whose vetting skills seem on par with her current boss. Well, supposed current boss, anyway.

We've certainly covered the Tim Walz Happy Neighborly Not-At-All-Fascist COVID Snitch Line, as have Power Line and other Minnesota and ex-pat writers. However, so far the mainstream media and major political figures haven't said too much about Walz' Stasi-esque enforcement mechanism during the pandemic. 

Yesterday, Ron DeSantis spoke up about it, not coincidentally in the context of ex-pats. While bragging about Florida's status as the top in-migration state in the US, the governor talked about why Americans were so eager to leave places like California, Illinois, and especially Minnesota. DeSantis scoffed at Walz' claim to believe in minding one's own business, and says Minnesotans left because of Walz' "Draconian" pandemic policies. Pick this up at the 2-minute mark or so, with this being the kill shot:

DESANTIS: I'm being asked about this and I haven't really said as much, but they're asking me about this Walz from Minnesota. Here's the thing: As Florida governor, I learn a lot about other states, because when people leave those states, they tell me why they left those states. And I remember during COVID the absolute frustration that people had moving from Minnesota because of how they were being treated. 

You know, this is a guy that's out there, he's got this line in the stump speech saying, "You know, our neighbors van do what they want, mind your own damn business!" Fine! Then why did you set up a snitch hotline for neighbors to report on their neighbors for violating your Draconian COVID restrictions? That's not 'minding your own damn business.' That's government overreach.

DeSantis offers us the art of understatement. That's a lot more than government overreach; it's overtly fascist. It's how authoritarian regimes co-opt their subjects into becoming part of a police state. It is designed to force everyone to seek the beneficence of an all-powerful state by making sure it has targets other than one's self. It's precisely how the Stasi operated so effectively in East Germany, as I pointed out at the beginning of the week in the link above.

As for being a "choice" governor, DeSantis scoffed at that as well. Walz didn't seem to respect choice or "bodily autonomy' during COVID either, mandating the uptake of experimental vaccines that turned out to have little to no impact on the spread of COVID:

DESANTIS: He'll say, "We should, ah, make health care choices, that's your choice!" Fine! Great! Then why did you impose a mandate to take an experimental mRNA COVID shot on your people? He did that for all state employees. I don't think it was constitutional; certainly isn't giving them an option for something that just came on the market. Are you kidding me?

This is what Republicans need to focus on -- Walz' record as governor, which is one of the most hard-Left in the country, and a record of utter failure. The stolen-valor issue has some value in defining Walz' character, but it's his gubernatorial record that will matter more. We need other GOP governors and leading officials taking up where DeSantis leaves off here in exposing that radical track record, not to mention the candidates on the Republican ticket.

To help with that strategy, my friend Scott Johnson from Power Line got an opportunity to make the case against Walz in the Wall Street Journal today. Scott also stays focused on Walz' gubernatorial failures and excesses, laying out a path to keep defining the Democrat ticket as the most radical in our history:

On taking office in 2019, Gov. Walz was restrained by a one-seat Republican majority in the state Senate—until Covid hit in the spring of 2020. He declared a state of emergency on March 25, 2020, and ruled by decree for 15 months. He proclaimed the emergency on the basis of an allegedly sophisticated Minnesota Model projection of the virus’s course in the state. In fact, the projection reflected a weekend’s work by graduate students at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Relying on their research, Mr. Walz presented a scenario in which an estimated 74,000 Minnesotans would perish from the virus. The following week the Star Tribune reported that with the lockdown Mr. Walz ordered, 50,000 would die. Maybe it would have been preferable to address the virus through democratic means.

Having destroyed jobs and impeded life routines, including family get-togethers and church attendance, Mr. Walz finally let his one-man rule lapse on July 1, 2021. When the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center stopped counting in March 2023, the deaths of 14,870 Minnesotans were attributed to the virus. (In 2020 I successfully sued the administration for excluding me from Health Department press briefings on Covid.)

During the state of emergency, protests broke out in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020 following the death of George Floyd. That Thursday, rioters burned Minneapolis’s Third Precinct police station to the ground. Mr. Walz didn’t deploy the National Guard until the weekend. Riots, arson and looting throughout the Twin Cities caused about $500 million in damage.

More of this, please, from the Republicans who matter. This is the record that matters, and this is the record that will cause voters to wonder how anyone in their right mind could have chosen Walz as a supposed 'moderate' that would appeal to anyone outside the progressive-elite clique. That goes directly to the judgment of the Anointed Nominee, and best of all, it's not even debatable. 

I spoke with Daily Caller's Katelynn Richardson about Walz' record earlier in the week. More will be coming on that front.