Growing US culture of dependency, Dems’ deadly denial on Hispanic voters’ shift and other commentary

Libertarian: Growing US Culture of Dependency

“An old saying has it that he who takes the king’s coin becomes the king’s man,” and “a growing share of Americans are becoming the king’s men,” warns Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. Per a new report: “Americans received $3.8 trillion in government transfers in 2022, accounting for 18% of all personal income,” a share that’s “more than doubled since 1970.” Partly, it’s our aging population: “The largest category of transfer payments is Social Security, followed by Medicare.” But “economic downturns continue to fuel growth in government payments” as well. Now “both major parties increasingly compete on visions of government that does things for people.” The fix? In the end, for “Americans to reassert independence, they’ll have to want to cut reliance on government.”

Liberal: Dems’ Deadly Denial on Hispanic Voters’ Shift

Democrats miss “the seriousness” of the party “steadily losing ground with Hispanic voters,” thunders The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira. Dems think “the course of social and demographic change should deliver an ever-growing Democratic coalition,” but “if Hispanic voting trends continue to move steadily against the Democrats, the pro-Democratic effect of nonwhite population growth will be blunted, if not cancelled out entirely.” In 2020, “Hispanics, after four years of Trump, gave him substantially more support than they did in 2016,” and “the latest data indicate that the Democratic margin among Hispanics is continuing to fall this cycle.” “We are still far away from Democrats losing majority support among Hispanics,” but “the signs of a continuing rightward shift among these voters are unmistakable.” 

From the right: Stuck in the ’70s Again

“America and the world left the ugly 1970s behind when Margaret Thatcher was elected British prime minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980,” notes the Issues & Insights Editorial Board. In the ’70s, America was wracked “by an energy crisis” plus “stagflation, political upheaval, [and] societal turbulence”; now it’s seeing “similar frustration, uneasiness, and division.” Voters now face a choice as at the end of the ’70s: “They can choose concession” by electing candidates who believe America is “nothing special.” “Or they can affirm optimism, energy independence, prosperity” and a devotion to “American liberty and the ideals of freedom.”

Foreign desk: Russia, China Rising in Latin America

“Central America runs the risk of becoming a chess piece of war-like extra-regional powers,” as “alliances with Russia and China threaten regional peace and stability,” argues Arturo McFields Yescas at The Hill. In 2023, “China expelled Taiwan from the Central American Parliament,” replacing it with Russia as a “permanent observer in this regional institution.” Earlier, “the Central American Bank for Economic Integration signed a trade financing agreement with Russia’s Interkommerz Bank” to help “stimulate international trade operations between Russia and the region.” Nicaragua then “established a Russian military training center,” using it “to repress civil society and pulverize civil liberties.” China and Russia are now “hand-in-hand with Nicaragua’s tyranny — three countries that are enemies of freedom, democracy and human rights.” Urgent: Washington “must strengthen its leadership in Central America and not underestimate the presence of dangerous superpowers in its backyard.”

Speech beat: Dems the True Threat to Democracy

“The real long-term threat to democracy in the United States is the increasing willingness of Democratic Party leaders to use the power and leverage of the federal government to silence speech they don’t like,” explains the Washington Examiner editorial board. The Supreme Court’s “shouting fire in a crowded theater” exception to the First Amendment came “in an infamous case that wrongly gave the federal government dictatorial authority to shut down debate” about “the draft during World War I,” and the high court ruled in 1969 “that free speech could not be so easily limited.” Rather, “the proper test for limiting speech was much narrower”: Was it “ ‘likely to incite or produce . . . imminent lawless action.’ ” And: “Under this test,” Democrats’ current “efforts to censor hate speech and misinformation are plainly unconstitutional.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board