By definition, the Dems are paternalistic because everything they do, like a lot of the so-called social programs in the Build Back Better Act, are designed for the government to provide 'services' normally reserved for parents, and therefore getting people dependent on government much in the way a child is dependent on his mother and father.

As the federal government gets bigger and bigger with more and more bureaucrats administering its entitlement programs, more power naturally flows to elected politicians and the bureaucrats because they hold more authority over people's lives with every new program.  So big government is the left's goal because it means more and more power.

Put simply, the Democrat party can be broken down into three groups: one, those in power, such as elected politicians and bureaucrats, whose allegiance is to the federal government, their employer, who cuts their paychecks; two, the gullible "useful idiots" who vote for Democrats because they believe that the party is "on the side of angels" with its fake promises of social justice and equality, and in general think Democrats are benign with good intentions; and three, all those people — especially in the black community — who are getting free government benefits and continue to vote for Democrats despite the party's history of failure for creating conditions of upward mobility and keeping many in a never-ending cycle of generational poverty. 

The last group also includes many in the corporate class who benefit from big government policies and programs.  For example, Walmart primarily relies on lower-class shoppers whose dollars originate with the federal government when they buy its cheap products.  Amazon recently announced that it will accept the government's EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) cards for online purchases on its website.  Many in the corporate class also support the Democrats because their open borders policy provides them with a large pool of cheap labor.  

The idea of the Democrats' paternalistic federal government, whose purpose is not to create conditions for individual initiative and responsibility for a better life for oneself as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, but one that began with Woodrow Wilson, the father of modern progressivism and big government paternalism, always gives (or tries to give) itself the authority to create conditions by manipulating and playing to group identity that does nothing less than pander and create dependency along with exacerbating resentment, division, and envy in order to maintain and expand political power.

Paternalism is, by definition, authoritarian, but there are circumstances when it is benign and good for the individual and others when it's not good.  In the case of the former, mothers and fathers are inherently authoritarian because their children are dependent on them for their safety and security, which automatically puts the parents in a position of power.  It is this power relationship between parents and a child that the Democrats perpetually attempt to usurp.  But this kind of authoritarianism derives from the love of the parents and their natural responsibility to ensure the survival of the child, a role the governmental simply cannot fulfill with remote and faceless bureaucrats.

The government's paternalism is derived from a position of power that comes from an innate instinct to ensure the survival and perpetuation of one's job first and foremost as an elected politician or bureaucrat.  This is a built-in conflict of interest that the average voter never considers, and wherever conflict of interest exists, corruption always follows.  The good news is that slowly but surely, the curtain is being pulled back for all to see the real motives and objectives behind the Democrats' façade.

Image: SVG.

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