Tweet [1]
… is from page 25 of Michael Strain’s excellent new (2020) book, The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It) [2]:
Precisely because hard work pays off and people can successfully climb the economic ladder, telling people that they cannot hurts their outcomes by sapping their energy and diminishing their aspirations.
DBx: Yes. Any such predictions of helplessness become self-fulfilling. And whether these lamentable outcomes are intended or not (in most cases I’m sure that they are not), the result is a large number of people needing to be ‘championed’ and ‘saved’ by self-righteous secular saviors – needing to be ‘championed’ and ‘saved’ by the very same people whose notions are instrumental in creating this baneful need.
Saviors need victims who need saving [3].