Socialists’ tragic ‘ignorance,’ getting the voting act wrong and other commentary

From the right: Socialists’ Tragic ‘Ignorance’

For the last decade, “people have been trying to explain the American left’s socialist turn,” observes The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Continetti. Here’s one possible explanation: “ignorance.” “You can’t earn a billion dollars,” argued Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, adding that “the American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time.” One problem: “The link between individual effort and reward isn’t always clear. State action is visible; the operations of the market are not.” But neither “billionaire” nor “wealth” appear in the Declaration of Independence, and the Revolution was actually “fought over political power,” not to cut down billionaires. How tragic: “To forget the causes and aims of the Revolution is to lose touch with America itself.”

Legal take: Getting the Voting Act Wrong

“The prevailing interpretation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965” as “requiring states to create congressional districts along racial lines” is plain wrong, explains Frank Miele at RealClearPolitics. Section 2 of the act banned any “qualification or prerequisite to voting” based on race, “to guarantee minorities access to the ballot box as equal participants in the democratic process” — but it didn’t mandate “racial engineering of congressional districts.” Indeed, the 1982 revision to the VRA specifically rules out the “right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.” The VRA “never explicitly required states to create majority-minority congressional districts,” and the Supreme Court’s recent decision undoes decades of illegal application of racial consideration to the drawing of congressional districts.

Libertarian: No ‘Tax Holiday’ for Travelers

While President Trump’s proposed “gas tax holiday” is welcome, “the real bite isn’t the federal 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents on each gallon of diesel fuel,” contends Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. Indeed, if you travel and especially if you rent a car, then gas taxes are “the least of the problem.” Fact is, “travelers make for easy marks” for politicians, since they don’t reside in “the places that soak them for revenue.” Per the Tax Foundation, “high local taxes and fees make Chicago the most expensive city, tax-wise, to rent a car.” “Travelers are also considered fair game for lodging taxes,” which are rising, too. Bottom line: With a “limited means to punish tax-hungry officials in places they visit,” travelers are “unlikely to enjoy anything like a tax holiday.”

Antisemitism beat: Jewish Dems’ Dilemma

A recent gathering of “Jewish Democrats offers insight into how Jews are attempting to reconcile their political identity with their party’s explosion of anti-Semitism,” notes Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Notably, “establishment Democrats” are embracing Graham Platner, the Nazi-tattooed Maine Senate nominee, despite his “history of anti-Semitic and misogynist comments.” Jewish Democratic Council of America director Halie Soifer, for instance, says she has a “deep concern about [Platner’s] views and values,” yet, notes Mandel, she’s nonetheless open “to reconciliation.” Jewish Dems’ slow embrace of “the need to fight anti-Semitism” in their party has “enabled the rise of the very candidates Soifer now claims to be concerned about.” They need to understand: “Staying neutral” isn’t an option; “if Jewish Democrats aren’t going to resist having extremist anti-Semites representing their party, then virtually no one will.”

Fraud watch: Minnesota Greenlighted Theft

“State education officials” in Minnesota warned of fraud involving a “federally funded meals program during the pandemic,” but their “supervisors stopped them” from taking “aggressive action,” reports Jeffrey Meitrodt at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “Supervisors repeatedly stopped” one state employee “from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims” regarding the notorious Feeding Our Future program, and “discouraged.” Of particular note: The employee was “warned not to do anything that would be considered targeting or discriminating against certain diverse communities.” Another employee ID’d tactics fraudsters used “to overwhelm regulators with paperwork,” making it harder for them to spot fraud” but supervisors nixed any countermeasures.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board