Democrats 2020: The Grievance Party
   
Describing the Democratic Party as one built on “identity politics” used to be a pejorative. But Georgia’s failed 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, recently defended this description of her party. “I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are,” said Abrams, “and it’s exactly how we won. … When we refuse to engage in the conversation of identity politics, when we refuse to acknowledge that we see you and we understand you and we understand the barriers that you face, then what we are met with is a lack of trust.”

Fellow Democrat and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg apparently failed to get the memo. A week before Abrams embraced and even expressed pride in Democrats’ identity politics, Buttigieg was blasting President Donald Trump for his “racist” use of it. Trump, said Buttigieg, engages in “peak white identity politics” that creates a “crisis of belonging” in America “designed to drive apart people with common interests.” Buttigieg added, “When you do not belong, it doesn’t just put you in a bad mood; it puts you in a different country.”

By “identity” politics, Democrats really mean grievances. The party leaders push the narrative that blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. are victims, whether due “inequality” or “sexism” or “racism” or “otherism.”

Take 2020 Democratic presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris, who announced plans to end the alleged grievance of “unequal pay.” Harris claims women working full time make 80 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men. She insists it’s worse for minorities: Black women are only paid 61 cents on the dollar, Hispanic women 53 cents. Never mind that the Labor Department long ago debunked this myth.

In 2009, the Labor Department, after controlling for education, job differences, number of hours worked and other factors, found that the wage gap between genders shrank to 5%: “A greater percentage of women than men tend to work part-time. Part-time work tends to pay less than full-time work. A greater percentage of women than men tend to leave the labor force for childbirth, childcare and elder care. Some of the wage gap is explained by the percentage of women who were not in the labor force during previous years, the age of women, and the number of children in the home. Women, especially working mothers, tend to value ‘family friendly’ workplace policies more than men. Some of the wage gap is explained by industry and occupation, particularly, the percentage of women who work in the industry and occupation.” As to the remaining 5% difference, the report said even that could be explained by reasons other than sexism.

Harris’ proposed “equal pay” law mandates that companies obtain federal certification to demonstrate women are not being underpaid. Failure to certify could cost billions in fines. Companies also incur fines of 1% of average daily profits for each 1% “gap” between the pay of male and female employees who perform the same job.

Harris might like to start with her own Senate office. Her average male Senate staff salary was 6 cents more on the dollar compared to that of a female staffer, the Washington Free Beacon found. Men earned more on the dollar compared to women during the first full month on Harris’ presidential campaign. But this is par for the course. President Barack Obama repeatedly railed against the alleged “pay gap” between men and women. Never mind that during his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama paid his non-intern male Senate staffers more than he paid female staffers, $54,397 to $45,152, respectively. In the White House, President Obama continued his “sexist” tradition, paying male staffers more than female staffers, $71,000 to $60,000, respectively, according to a 2011 annual report. Sen. Hillary Clinton, from 2002 to 2008, also paid male staffers more than female staffers — $15,708.38 more, with females getting 72 cents on the dollar compared to men, according to Senate expenditure reports.

Socialist Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders peddles another grievance: If some get paid a lot, why can’t others get paid more? “If we are a nation that can provide contracts to baseball players for hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Sanders, “don’t tell me we cannot pay teachers in this country the kind of wages and salaries they deserve.”

Sanders might be on to something. He implicitly suggests that under a privatized educational system, teachers would be compensated at the level of their expertise, as defined by the free market. Under such a private system, schools could bid for “top draft picks,” the best students coming out of education colleges. Put the Annual Teacher Draft on cable TV. The best sign lucrative contracts, renewed based upon performance, with pay adjusted up or down accordingly. No tenure, no requirement of an act of God to fire someone for incompetence. Grievance solved.

Sanders for secretary of the Department of Education!

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No Credit Where Credit It Is Due
   
The quote is attributed to President Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan kept it on his desk: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

It is even more amazing what has been accomplished with the American economy, but Democratic presidential candidates, the media and economists such as Paul Krugman of The New York Times refuse to give President Trump any credit. Recall that it was Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner, who predicted that Trump’s election would trigger “a global recession.” One continues to wait in vain for an “I was wrong” statement from him.

The Economist, a center-left British magazine that includes coverage of events in the U.S. and is no fan of the Trump administration, recently published a remarkable editorial that contains gems Republicans should quote between now and the next election. They include a strong rebuke to the contention of many Democrats that “working people” are still struggling and that the improved economy continues to benefit only the wealthiest 1 percent.

The bleak picture painted by Democrats, the editorial says, “is at odds with reality.” The Economist refers to a worldwide “jobs boom” and (note to Bernie Sanders and others promoting socialism) asserts that, “Capitalism is improving workers’ lot faster than it has in years … the zeitgeist has lost touch with the data.”

Noting that U.S. unemployment at 3.6 percent is the lowest in 50 years, the magazine says, “Less appreciated is the abundance of jobs across most of the rich world.”

A more educated population, the matching by websites of jobs to qualified applicants, and, yes, economic stimulus efforts that helped fuel the emergence of economies from the last recession have all contributed to the American economy and many European economies.

Then there is this, which has been the gospel of conservatives for decades when it comes to welfare and its disincentive for many to find work: “… reforms to welfare programs, both to make them less generous and to toughen eligibility tests, seem to have encouraged people to seek work.”

This has forced liberal politicians to shift their focus from the unemployed to the “quality” of jobs. British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is quoted as saying, “Our jobs market is being turned into a sea of insecurity.”

“Reality begs to differ,” says The Economist. “Official projections” predict that by 2026, “America will have more at-home careers than secretaries.” Jobs and the skills necessary to fill them are changing, but not so rapidly that workers — and especially younger people — cannot adjust their education and training to match the new requirements.

Wages are rising almost everywhere, and, as the editorial says, tight labor markets “lead firms to fish for employees in neglected pools, including among ex-convicts. … American wonks fretted for years about how to shrink the disability-benefit rolls. Now the hot labor market is doing it for them.”

This is the argument that conservatives, many Republicans and the Trump administration have been making for some time. Economic growth, not government, raises most boats.

While acknowledging “The jobs boom will not last forever” and that a recession will eventually “kill it off,” the editorial concludes that the economic boom “deserves a little appreciation.”

It deserves more than that and would be more than appreciated if it all happened under a Democratic president. Republicans and the Trump administration should seize on this reality and promote it every day, asking voters if they want to continue with these successful policies or return to low economic growth and fewer jobs.

It is a question Democrats and their policies of higher taxes and reimposed regulations will find difficult, if not impossible, to answer.

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Inheritance Welfare Liberals — The Effluent of Generational Wealth and Privilege

Irony: Legions of leftist cadres hate the wealthy elite benefactors who gave them rise.
   
“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” —John Adams (1780)

(Note: I have referenced what I call “inheritance welfare liberalism” in columns for two decades. What follows is a long overdue column devoted to this cultural malignancy eroding our nation’s foundational legacy of Liberty. It is especially virulent among affluent millennials who embrace leftist political and social organizations and policies, and spend their time and money propagating the same.)

Founder John Adams, before serving as vice president to George Washington and following him as our second president, was a Boston lawyer and Revolutionary War leader. In 1774, on the insistence of his second cousin Samuel Adams (my favorite of the Founders after Washington), John Adams played a key role in the drafting of the letter of grievances to King George III.

A year later, it was Adams who nominated Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. And in June of 1776, Adams organized and chose the Committee of Five who would draft our Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Adams himself.

Bookending his Revolutionary War role, in 1783 Adams was appointed the American commissioner to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, ending the hostilities between Britain and the newly formed United States. The treaty was signed on September 3, 1783, and American independence was officially recognized.

Countless volumes have been written about Adams, perhaps the best being the 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning epic John Adams by historian David McCullough, which was also the basis for an acclaimed documentary series.

Adams, who was also father to our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, is frequently and fittingly quoted in The Patriot Post, and even a cursory review of his quotes in our Founder’s Quote Database reveals his timeless wisdom.

But for as long as I’ve been a student of American history and its relevance in the present, particularly the history of our Founders and the extraordinary legacy of Liberty they bequeathed to us, there has been one quote from Adams that always caused me consternation.

In May of 1780, before the pivotal battle of Kings Mountain and the surrender of British commanding general Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail in which he asserted: “I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

In the context of his time, I understand the sentiments expressed by this esteemed Founder, but later generations proved the substance of his words errant. It was assumed by Adams that successive generations would be imbued with the patriotic virtues required to sustain Liberty.

But there is no such inherited legacy, as Thomas Paine noted in his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense: “When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”

And on the degrading influence of generational wealth on virtue, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.”

In his day, Adams’s words were shaped by a desire for peace and prosperity, for the ability of his sons to be free not to focus on war-fighting but on the sciences, that their children might be free to focus on the arts.

The problem with his perspective on posterity is that the generations following those who have sacrificed much to sustain Liberty know progressively less about the cost of sustaining that Liberty, and they tend to consider it a hereditary right rather than a responsibility. The consequence is a spiral into the fatal cycle of democracy, which follows this sequence: from bondage to faith; from faith to courage; from courage to Liberty; from Liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage.

This cycle is perpetuated by an abject ignorance of generational history — no sense of the price paid for freedom. The great 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke observed, “The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” Indeed, that delusion is dependent on erasing the knowledge of the past. As 20th-century philosopher George Santayana concluded in his treatise, The Life of Reason, “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” English writer and dystopian philosopher Aldous Huxley put it more succinctly: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

James Madison’s Supreme Court justice, Joseph Story, wrote that if Liberty is to be extended to the next generation, then we must teach successive generations well: “Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.”

Like Liberty, a dollar earned and a dollar inherited are both dollars, but a dollar earned has a very different value to its holder than a dollar inherited.

Among the most influential in each generation are its wealthy. This would include the creators of wealth, but mostly it’s those in succeeding generations who inherited their wealth and its commensurate privilege. They are from “families of means,” not fortune-builders but fortune-spenders, disconnected from the challenges and difficulties most often associated with wealth creation.

I’ve written at length about notable politicians who were what I call “inheritance welfare liberals” — those who inherited their wealth and, by extension, the opportunity and class standing it provided. They are beneficiaries of generational privilege, dependent on financial inheritance and no longer embodying the essential spirit of the self-reliance that created that wealth — the self-reliance that forms the core of American Liberty. The resulting “dependence ethos” is virtually indistinguishable from the dependence ethos of those who have been generationally inculcated with the belief that they’re dependent upon welfare handouts from the state.

Though markedly dissimilar in terms of their power and influence, the underlying difference between inheritance welfare liberals and generations of poor welfare recipients is that the former depend on investment and trust distributions, while the latter depend on government redistributions.

The most influential inheritance welfare politician of the 20th century was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who seeded the so-called “Great Society” and the modern welfare state, effectively enslaving generations of poor people.

Of course, it’s not a universal truth that all who inherit wealth and opportunity are condemned to a welfare mentality. In some cases, the first generation has inspired the succeeding generation to work hard — to invest their lives rather than spend their lives.

But in most cases, by the third generation of those who are painters, poets, musicians, or otherwise engrossed in the arts, they have little if any attachment to the first generation which provided them the freedom and luxury of such pursuits. They place little value in their grandparents’ sacrifices to establish and maintain Liberty and the privilege they enjoy. They form today’s liberal elite, who put their time and resources into political and social causes that are antithetical to Liberty and free enterprise.

Because they have little genuine sense of self-reliance and are dependent on the labors of others, they identify with and become outspoken advocates for the dependence of others. They are the primary benefactors of today’s Democrat Party, which is devolving into a socialist party as it attracts ever-greater legions of “useful idiots.”

Ironically, these wealthy elite fund the front lines of class-warfare cadres, the effluent of generational privilege, who hate the very same inheritance welfare benefactors who gave them rise.

I should note that generational welfare-inheritance influencers are not always leftist protagonists. Some also form the core of establishment Republicans. The common denominator between wealthy leftists and establishment Republicans is that both groups are very disconnected from the bedrock grassroots Americans upon whom they’re utterly dependent for their existence.

John Adams’s wisdom on Liberty has been timeless and enduring, but his assertion about sequential generational beneficiaries of what was earned by previous generations has proven to be deeply flawed.

Finally, as it relates to the inheritance of Liberty, this just-past Memorial Day, I offered some advice to those who genuinely want to demonstrate their gratitude to all who gave the last full measure and paid the highest price for their Liberty, and those who, likewise, want to thank active duty and veteran military service personnel for the freedom they have, and continue to defend, at great cost.

That advice: Strive to be, first and foremost, an American citizen worthy of their sacrifice.

Tragically, most young people have no context for understanding what it means to be “an American citizen worthy of their sacrifice,” because their Liberty and privilege was inherited, not earned. Consequently, their ideas have been largely shaped by self-centered social and academic influencers who not only take Liberty for granted but who embrace the statism that progressively suppresses it.

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Large AFRICAN Group Wades Across The Rio-Grande Into The United States

A group of illegals from Angola, Cameroon and Congo waded across the Rio Grande River and into the United States, video from Customs and Border Protection shows.

The video shows male and female adults walking through the water and into Texas, several with children on their shoulders.

The attempted invasion occurred on Thursday, according to the agency. The river — or “natural barrier” — was so shallow, the surface didn’t reach the adults’ waists.

There were 116 in the group, the agency says.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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