RIGHT SPEAK: Today’s Left To Americans: You Can’t Make It Without Welfare

Contrary to their name, modern progressives view most Americans as regressive—fundamentally incapable of succeeding beyond a life on the dole.

New York Times columnist David Brooks recently argued that Democrats’ proposed trillions of dollars in new government spending would provide dignity for the common man. Brooks misses not just the fact that the Biden agenda would undermine work, robbing millions of middle-class Americans of the dignity of a job, but also the patronizing premise underlying the left’s goals.

In the first century BC, the Roman poet Virgil coined the phrase Amor omnia vincit: “love conquers all.” By contrast, the left remains obsessed with creating new entitlements, believing Americans will overlook the country’s myriad problems under Democratic rule because voters care only about obtaining “free” benefits and programs from the government—Welfare omnia vincit.

Contrary to their name, modern progressives view most Americans as regressive—fundamentally incapable of succeeding beyond life on the dole.

McAuliffe says parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach

Patronizing Dismissals

Witness Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s comments at his recent Virginia gubernatorial debate with Republican Glenn Youngkin. Asked why in 2016 he vetoed a bill that would have allowed parents to block their children’s exposure to sexually explicit material, McAuliffe explained: “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and take books out and make their own decision….I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they teach.”

McAuliffe has company in thinking parents incapable of teaching their own children. In 2019, Harvard University professor Elizabeth Bartholet wrote a law review article calling for “a presumptive ban on homeschooling,” in part due to the Christian beliefs of most parents who homeschool.

Viewed from this perspective, Democratic proposals for “free” child care, pre-kindergarten, and community college appear less a well-intended move to help families than a ham-handed attempt to “save” the children of the unwashed masses.