By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist

Tim Walz is a good choice.

So would have been any of the others from among whom Vice President Harris chose. Walz is a likable guy. With a shiv. It was he who started the “weird” moniker. Like Kamala, he’ll bring the fun. And dead seriousness.

Appropriate as “weird” is, it applies better to R-“Cubby”-FK Jr. The word for Trump and Trumpists is “creepy.” Let’s go with that from now on.

Also creepy are those who accuse Democrats of “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)” for speaking truth. The real TDS is exemplified by this satirical but accurate video: (X: tinyurl.com/TDS4u) It’s believing his lies and loving them. It’s being expected to swallow them without chewing, as confirmed by Trump’s appearance at the NABJ, delayed by his demand that there be no real-time fact-checking (MSN: tinyurl.com/nofactcheck).

The difference is stark: Lying is how Trump appeals to his base. Kamala Harris appeals to hers, and to everyone, by telling the truth. While many of the Trump-Vance lies are laughable, others are dangerously inciteful, deliberately. Examples of the former: She wants to take away your gas stoves and cars. And cows. Wants to change your kids’ gender. The latter: “They” tried to kill him. Because he’s smarter, that shameful lie makes J.D. Vance more deplorable than Trump.

As Trump contemplates the possibility of losing to a Black (and, yes, a South Asian) woman, his bitter negativity contrasts ever more with her joyful positivity. Having an unpopular and negative agenda, he can only lie, which, coincidentally, is something he’s perfected over a lifetime. Having policies approved by a majority of Americans, Harris has only to be truthful. So he and his mouthers look for distractions; despicable Laura Ingraham stooped to deriding Harris for hugging people. The human touch is foreign to Fox “news.” Now it’s Second Husband Doug Emhoff’s affair while married to his former wife. Really? They want to go there? Three words: Trump. And Trump.

Also, Trump.

If ever there were an issue from which Trump and his apologists would like to distract, it’s last week’s revelation of $10 million, in cash, weighing 200 pounds, withdrawn from an Egyptian bank, mysteriously ending up amongst Trump’s campaign funds. Accepting bribes? Unsurprising. It appears he’d already promised oil executives anything they wanted in return for a billion (Yahoo: tinyurl.com/gimmebill).

But it’s worse: Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump’s handyman in his weaponized Department of Justice, quashed investigations into the affair, as he’d done in firing U.S. attorneys looking into Trump’s pre-presidential crimes. The story is so important that this gifted link is useable for non-WaPo subscribers: wapo.st/3LVTkAq. You’re welcome.

Having excoriated Trump as unsuitable to be president, Barr says he’ll still vote for him. Such spineless and sycophantic amorality makes him perfect to appear regularly on Fox “news” and its imitators. So he does.

Spines are similarly scarce southward. After Trump went on a Cobb salad of a rant in Georgia, about its governor Brian Kemp’s “disloyalty” for not lying for him (YouTube: tinyurl.com/2salad4u), Kemp responded: “My focus is on … saving our country from Kamala Harris … not engaging in petty personal insults.” He’ll vote for him, in other words, leaving us to wonder: from what dangers of Kamala Harris does the country need saving that outweigh the clear and present ones of Trump? Not to mention his bottomless indecency, which shames us all.

It’s a question for all Republicans disliking but still planning to vote for Trump: Why? What vision of America under Kamala Harris threatens your way of life? How awful would it be for you and your families if she were able, like Gov. Walz was in Minnesota, to see that hungry children are fed and homeless are housed? What do you expect from Trump that justifies overlooking his lawlessness, childish pettiness, and promises of governance by dictatorship? Tax breaks? Deregulation? You won’t get those unless you’re a billionaire or polluter.

Is it rounding up undocumented aliens?

If you consider yourself conservative, how do you excuse his congratulating Vladimir Putin for the deal that freed Americans imprisoned in Russia, issuing not a word to the captives or praise for the countries involved? And lying that he never gave anything for his deals? Other than, you know, releasing 500 Taliban prisoners held by Afghanistan. And these: (tinyurl.com/hegave4u).

Are you distracted from his promise not to “spend a penny” on schools that require vaccines, which is all of them? “For cheers at a rally,” he may as well have said, “I’ll trade children crippled or dying from polio, suffering deadly measles pneumonia, or becoming sterile from mumps.” And cheer they do. You, too? When he says he doesn’t need your votes, does it make you think he expects his certification-deniers to overturn state elections (X: tinyurl.com/noneedvote)? If you were to place country over Trump, you wouldn’t be alone (NBC News: tinyurl.com/reps4KH). Could this help your decision (X; tinyurl.com/4realJC)?

Kamala Harris will win the popular vote massively. The undemocratic, outdated Electoral College, though? Who knows?

Also, Tim Walz is younger than Brad Pitt.

Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.