In the 1930s, if a Republican politician chose to go to Hitler’s Germany for his honeymoon, he would have been hounded from office. But in the 1980s and 1990s two Democrats and one independent (with close ties to the Democrats) chose to go to communist countries for their honeymoon. One of them is Tim Walz, the newly minted Democratic vice presidential candidate. We need to know why.
In 1989, Walz moved to Communist China to teach at a high school for a year. He later said it was “one of the best things I’ve ever done.” Five years later he got married and chose to honeymoon there. He has been to China at least 30 times.
When Walz was chosen to join Vice President Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket, the Chinese state media noted his frequent trips there and praised him for “fostering cultural exchanges.”
Under Mao Zedong, who ruled China from 1949 to 1976, 77 million people were killed, far outdoing the body count under Hitler and Stalin. While Walz has criticized human rights abuses in China in recent years, he has never explained why he would honeymoon in a nation with a history of mass murder. Nor has he explained why he is reticient about condemning Communist China for threatening the security of Taiwan.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who frequently caucuses with the Democrats, spent his honeymoon in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). The communists killed 66 million, mostly under Stalin.
Like Walz, Sanders has never explained why he would honeymoon in such a blood-stained country. He did so in 1988. While he was there he condemned U.S. foreign policy, but said nothing about egregious human rights abuses in the USSR.
In 1972, Sanders said that U.S. policy in Vietnam was “almost as bad as what Hitler did.” In 1985, he had a friendly sit-down with Daniel Ortega, the communist dictator of Nicaragua. In 1989, he visited Castro’s Cuba, praising the communists for their healthcare system, schools and housing, but saying nothing about the political prisoners being held. Today he refuses to condemn the oppressive Marxist regime of Maduro in Venezuela.
In 1994, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went on his honeymoon to Cuba. What he did was illegal, but that didn’t matter. He never told his children about this—they found out after he admitted it on TV; they were told their parents honeymooned in Canada.
In 1988, de Blasio went to Nicaragua to support the communist Sandinista regime. In 1990, he said he supported “democratic socialism” (which is an oxymoron), but when he was asked about this by the New York Times in 2013, he denied it. When the reporter said he has the evidence, de Blasio said, “It doesn’t matter.”
It does matter to the American people that left-wing political leaders cozy up to communist totalitarian dictators. De Blasio is out of office and Sanders is going nowhere, but for Walz, that is a different story. He needs to come clean. It is one thing to teach in Communist China, quite another to celebrate a wedding there. And why all the back and forth trips?
Contact Walz’s chief of staff: Chris.Schmitter@state.mn.us
