For those convinced the Tim Walz veep choice defied a better option, that very option — by general acclaim Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro — seems to have picked up a bit of the Minnesota leftist’s weirdo vibe.

Who knows — maybe the public play-acting was a latent talent. And: What else can we expect of Democrats, who have made performance art their raison d’être for participating in our representative republic?

Admittedly, Shapiro’s TikTok antics are not as cringey as the infamous Choose Your Fighter stunt — channeling a stew of the Powerpuff Girls, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and aging Mutant Ninja Turtles — that a sextet of Democratic House members (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Susie Lee, Katherine Clark, Jasmine Crockett, Lauren Underwood, and Judy Chu) dropped on an embarrassed America last week.

But the supposedly sober (as in “. . . and judicious) Pennsylvania chief executive has caught the party’s bug, the one that infected Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign: that elections are won and issues advanced by big-name celebrity payouts and waged through social media (at one point deemed “genius” by Newsweek, a judgement that did not age well).

Commonwealth Foundation has castigated the play-acting, video-loving, and presumed 2028 presidential hopeful — whom the liberty-loving institute dubs “TikTok Josh” — not only for the cringiness of his content, but for the fact that it was done on the taxpayer dime (9 million dimes, for those counting):

If there is one thing that Gov. Josh Shapiro loves, it’s social media. The governor — thanks to his taxpayer-funded, nine-person “digital strategy” team who makes nearly $900,000 annually in salaries alone — has curated quite the public persona on TikTok, Facebook, and X/Twitter.

Commonwealth charges that those same taxpayers footing Shapiro’s social-media bill are targets of his TikTok mock: In one stunt, he stares off while AC/DC heavy metal chords rip, the vignette captioned, “The song that plays in my head when someone tells me to ban abortion.” The Sugarhill Gang must have been out of town.

Amongst the vanity project’s numerous clips are those of Shapiro bragging he’s a “Barbie guy,” Gen-Z slangin’, and lip-syncing to Parks & Recreation.

So very hep. Commonwealth has announced a small social-media effort of its own: “We’re pitting the governor’s top eight cringiest videos against one another. Each round, two videos will face off, and voters on Twitter/X can vote for the ‘cringiest’ of the two.”

Brackets for this twist on March (Democrat politician) Madness can be found here.