Liberal: The Dem’s ‘Brahmin’ Problem
“The Democrats have become and remain today a ‘Brahmin Left’ party,” grumbles The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira — “increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites.”
This “Brahminization” “presents existential dangers to the party.”
Some Dems think fixing it is “just a matter of playing the economic populist card,” but “much stronger medicine is needed.”
Specifically, “a class traitor — a politician who’s not afraid to ask Democrats who the social justice they prize so highly is really for.”
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“Such a politician might actually be able to remake the party and face down the Brahmin Left dead-enders. But is such a politician or politicians out there in the Democratic ranks? I’ve got my doubts.”
Realist: Ukraine Mineral Deal Is Only Fair
US and Ukrainian negotiators last week “likely discussed President Trump’s proposed deal for Ukrainian minerals in return for continued economic and military support,” suggests Mark T. Kimmitt at The Wall Street Journal.
“Seeking to recoup some of the funds provided to Ukraine is both reasonable and fiscally imperative.”
“Throughout history, wars have been financed with borrowed money,” and Washington is now $37 trillion in debt, which imperils “the defense budget and, by extension, American defense.”
Even as “foreign countries maintain cradle-to-grave welfare systems, the US bears by far the heaviest defense burden” in protecting Europe.
“Any expectation that US taxpayers . . . fully fund Ukraine’s war is unreasonable.” We no longer have “the luxury of offering a blank check to the Ukrainian war effort.”
Moderate: Hope for Higher-Ed Reform
“Once a sleepy policy area on the national scale, higher education is now a central issue making headlines,” cheers Beth Akers at The Hill.
Years of “incremental” reforms have left the higher-ed system “broken.”
Now, “Trump’s campaign promise to abolish the federal Department of Education” presents Republicans with “a remarkable political moment.”
For example: “Addressing some of the most glaring problems with Title IV funding programs (student loans and grant aid) would save taxpayers money — lots of it.”
The current “alignment of political opportunity and public interest” should be used to “spur lawmakers to drive the reforms a decade in the making.”
Bringing “normalcy and function back into higher education” would enable it to “once again serve as a vehicle for social mobility for all Americans.”
Libertarian: Toss the EPA Along With ‘Environmental Justice’
Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin is right to deep-six race-obsessed “environmental justice,” which is a “patchwork of ideological considerations piggybacking on an already established environmental movement to gain access to political power” with disregard for “equal protection of the law,” argues Reason’s JD Tuccille.
But the EPA itself “was a problem long before it added racialized environmentalism to the woes it inflicts”; it’s “still an out-of-control bureaucracy” that “sometimes seems committed to turning the lights off on industrial civilization.”
“Celebrate the end of the ‘environmental justice’ at the EPA . . . But the job won’t be completed until the EPA itself is gone.”
Education beat: The Classic Learning Test’s Pros
RealClear Investigations’ Vince Bielski deems the Classic Learning Test — a standardized test rooted in the Western canon — a welcome alternative to the SAT and ACT.
“As CLT founder Jeremy Tate sees it, those tests have played a role in making education overly utilitarian and job-focused.”
Students hoping to ace the CLT, meanwhile, should be well versed in Homer, Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.
Battles are playing out in state legislatures across the country, as the College Board (which runs the SAT) has hired lobbyists to protect its turf.
“State wins are essential for Tate to reach his goal of 500,000 annual CLT test-takers in three years,” needed to gain credibility with universities.
Unseating the SAT from its Olympic throne may be a herculean task, but at least Tate and his disciples understand the reference.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board