We’re not going back
If Republicans expect to lead in the 21st century they might first try living in it.
Donald Trump’s view of the world stopped developing along with his emotional maturity before he was a teen.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Republicans claimed Sir Ronald of Reagan had slain the Evil Empire and won the Cold War. Decades into the 21st century, they are still fighting it, invoking communists and Marxists and socialists (Oh, my!) as a slur against every political foe, always “to the left of [Fox News liberal bogeyman here].” President Harry Truman declared in 1952 that socialism is “a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.” Scare tactics are still their go-to.
Over 70 years later, The Wall Street Journal this week inveighed against Minnesota under Gov. Tim Walz (D) for moving his state “sharply to the left.” Among Walz’s sins:
• Funding “the North Star Promise Program, which provides free college for students with a family income under $80,000,” including illegal immigrants.
• Creating a state system for paid family and medical leave, capped at a combined 20 weeks a year and funded by a 0.88% payroll tax.
• Mandating that public utilities generate 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030, ramping up to 100% by 2040. He’s a fervent believer in “climate action.”
• Subsidizing electric vehicles by “requiring EV charging infrastructure within or adjacent to new commercial and multi-family buildings,” as the Governor’s office bragged.
• Passing one of the nation’s most permissive abortion statutes that has essentially no limits and no age consideration for minors.
• Declaring Minnesota to be a “trans refuge,” with a law saying that the state will ignore a “court order for the removal of a child issued in another state because the child’s parent or guardian assisted the child in receiving gender-affirming care in this state.”
• Establishing automatic voter registration and letting Minnesotans sign up for a permanent absentee ballot option.
“Make America Minnesota Already,” Catherine Rampell recommends in The Washington Post:
Republicans have smeared Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz as an “extremist,” “communist” and “left-wing radical.” They warn of the “dangerously liberal” agenda that he’s implemented as governor of Minnesota and that he might soon inflict upon the entire country.
You know what? The country should be so lucky.
In general, Walz’s state agenda has been politically smart, fiscally sound and family-friendly — not to mention long overdue pretty much everywhere else in America.
What Republicans whine are costly expenses, Walz views as sound public investments … in people.
To the idea of universal free breakfasts and lunches for schoolchildren, Walz thinks like Charlton Heston’s Moses in the film. Republicans and the Wall Street Journal play the role of Egyptian slavemasters. “What? Feed the slaves?”
Moses: A city is built of brick, Pharoah. The strong make many, the starving make few. The dead make none.
“Making nutritious meals available to kids, without stigmatizing the poorest among them, is a valuable public investment,” Rampell writes. “A recent meta-analysis of past studies on universal school meals found positive associations with children’s diet quality, food security and academic performance.”
Rampell continues:
Other policies that [Walz] pushed also look like good stewardship of public funds — in addition to being, you know, compassionate.
For instance, Minnesota is developing a program to ensure that kids on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are continuously insured from birth to age 6, rather than periodically kicking them out of the program if their family’s income fluctuates slightly.
This is no small mercy. The paperwork required for reapplication is burdensome. It often results in eligible kids losing access to needed medical coverage because of administrative errors, even when their family’s income doesn’t change. Similar programs have been associated with improvements in kids’ health.
Minnesota’s version looks like a pretty good bargain for taxpayers, too. Research suggests that historical Medicaid expansions for kids offer high returns on investment. These policies often “pay for themselves,” says MIT economics professor Nathaniel Hendren, because of “improved later-life health of those children (which reduces future Medicaid spending) and increased later-life earnings (which increases tax revenue).”
Democrats get the idea. You get the idea. But not slavemasters. Not Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), who she signed a law expanding child labor.
Rampell’s not done:
Other policies Walz has implemented in Minnesota, such as paid family and medical leave, lack detailed, long-term fiscal assessments but are nonetheless associated with improved health outcomes. They also happen to poll phenomenally well.
A recent survey conducted by Morning Consult found that 82 percent of registered voters support paid family and medical leave. Among the supporters: 76 percent of Republicans. I supposed that means three-quarters of Republican voters must be “communists” like Walz, too.
When you’ve lost 76% of Republicans, Republicans, you’ve lost. Welcome to the 21st century. It looks like Minnesota.
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