Dakota Beacon

Remember the bygone phrase “youth culture?” It defines the way children and adolescents live their lives and the norms, values, and practices they share.

In an astute observation Maureen Callahan penned a piece appearing in the New York Post (9/5/2019) titled “Americans Have Become Children – Demanding, Dependent, and Needy.” She sums up the article in her first sentence. “As a population, it’s exotic to the point of extinction, vanishing in plain sight: the American adult. As a trend, this has been gestating for at least the past decade…” There haven’t been any real adult role models since baby boomers decided to be friends with their kids rather than raise them. Teenagers and young adults think they have authority but they haven’t lived long enough to know enough. They have opinions but no wisdom.

This phenomenon is most clearly evident on the left. When adults leave kids unsupervised bedlam and disorder ensues. One need look no further than the Democrat Party.

Who is in charge? Nancy Pelosi? Chuck Schumer? Neither of these two exhibit any control over the so-called “Squad” or the rest of their crowd. A leaderless party is on display for all to see.

Here is some of the childishness demonstrated on the left when adults are not in control.

            -- “2020 Democrats Heed AOC Call to ‘Pack’ the Supreme Court and Force America to the Left.” Headline from The Washington Examiner, 3/20/2019.

            -- “Ocasio-Cortez Floats 70 Percent Tax on the Super Wealthy to Fund Green New Deal [GND].” Politico, 1/4/2019.

            -- “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants to Pay for Her [GND] by Essentially Printing More Money.” The Week, 2/7/2019.

            -- When he was still a presidential candidate: “Beto: ‘I Think There’s a Lot of Wisdom in’ Abolishing Electoral College.” National Review, 3/19/2019.

All the Democrat candidates are racing so hard to the left they are falling into the Pacific Ocean. No one is reining them in. Rather, all of the would-be party leaders are doing what the “kids” tell them to do.

Elisabeth Warren, at a town hall, promised to have a transsexual child (9-year-old) help her pick her Secretary of Education if elected president. Which begs the question, “Why not follow the same device to pick the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State?” This at a CNN town hall debate 10/10/2019.

Scan this list of proposals:

            -- give 16-year-olds the right to vote;

            -- abolish the Electoral College;

            -- pack the Supreme Court by increasing the number of justices;

            -- ban all firearms;

            -- extend abortion to include post-birth infants;

            -- open all borders;

            -- eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE);

            -- give illegals drivers licences;

            -- give illegals the right to vote;

            -- give illegals Social Security benefits;

            -- provide Medicare-for-all (Federal takeover of healthcare).

The leftist would-be leaders, especially those running for President of the United States, are afraid of a bunch of “kids” demanding they eat cake and ice cream for supper. Candidates are ready to kowtow when the “kids” throw a fit and don’t get their way.

Result? The leftist politicians try to bribe the “kids.” The choice is between Joe Biden’s $50 trillion goodie package and Bernie Sander’s $40 trillion giveaway scheme.

Of course, none of this was missed by President Trump’s alternative media. On 3/20/2019 he tweeted, “The Democrats are getting very ‘strange’. They now want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the Electoral College, and increase significantly the number of Supreme Court Justices. Actually, you’ve got to win it at the ballot box first!” To those who run around calling Trump a liar, -- well, on this point he was right on target.

Seriously, the so-called Democrat “leaders” have lost control. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez refused to pay the “dues” she owns the Democrat National Committee -- $250,000 from her fundraising efforts. Why? She is determined to fund candidates to run against sitting Democrat Congressmen and Congresswomen. They are to be “primaried” – a verb meaning to defeat party incumbents in primary elections and replacing them with far left candidates to run in the general election. How do you like “them apples” Ms. Pelosi?

As an aside, Governor DeSantis of Florida is doing a phenomenal job restoring good old fashion civics to the public school curriculum – civics from the standpoint of the American founding and the US Constitution. Not since the late 1980s and early 1990s when civics, history, geography, and race relations were amalgamated and debased into something called “social studies” has there been such a renaissance of civics. Florida public school students may be in a vanguard of young people equipped for adulthood.

You question the impact of degraded adulthood? Sample the 2020 Democrat Party platforms at state and national levels as the campaign season opens. The foolishness of the platforms will attest to the utter lack of adult leadership in the Democrat Party.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).