#John Lewis’ lesson for America and other commentary

Late Rep. John Lewis stands near an exhibit of images of his arrest record for leading a nonviolent sit-in at Nashville’s segregated lunch counters in March 1963.
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John Lewis’ life “is worth celebrating for its own sake,” declares The Wall Street Journal editorial board, “but it’s all the more valuable for what it says about the progress of his country.” One of 10 children of an Alabama sharecropper, Lewis, who died Friday, was “born into a world” of state-enforced white supremacy, segregated schools and lunch counters. Yet he won election to Congress in 1986, served there until his death and watched his nation send a black man to the White House. “Much of the left” dismisses America’s racial progress, ignoring “the central principle of the Declaration of Independence — ‘all men are created equal.’  ” Lewis’ life is “a refutation of those who would now consign America to a future of continuing racial rancor and division.”

From the left: Demography Isn’t Destiny

The idea that Democrats are guaranteed to become the US majority party “is based on a bowdlerization of my own work” with John Judis, Ruy Teixeira explains at Persuasion: Their “Emerging Democratic Majority” wasn’t a guarantee of victory, but an argument for how to build one, exploiting trends such as “the growth of minority communities and cultural shifts among college graduates.” The huge “but”: “We also ­emphasized that building this majority would require a very broad coalition, including many voters drawn from the white working class” — which was the true Obama coalition. Yet “this crucial nuance was quickly lost,” leading to “a decade-long electoral disaster” for Democrats. If party operatives don’t admit “the need to appeal to voters ­beyond the ranks of their most supportive groups,” then “the next decade could turn out to be just as bitter as the last.”

Iconoclast: The Old Right Is the New Left

“We laughed at the Republican busybody who couldn’t joke, declared war on dirty paintings and peered through your bedroom window,” ­recalls Matt Taibbi on his blog. But “now that person has switched sides, and nobody’s laughing.” Years ago, “an artist had to do something fairly ambitious, like piss on a crucifix in public, to get conservative protesters off their couches. Today Matt Yglesias signing a group letter with Noam Chomsky is considered threatening.” And “a lot less than booking a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit” — the artist was infamous for his phallic images — “can get you in the soup.” Rather, “a headline, a ­retweet, even likes are costing people jobs.” The big difference: The left “has the bureaucratic juice to shut down mass media efforts to ridicule its thinking” because it’s “winning the culture war.”

Education beat: Discount Remote College!

“Despite the obvious differences between online and in-person ­education, colleges and universities are largely set on maintaining — if not raising — tuitions,” observes Carine Hajjar at National Review, even as they move most classes online. Najjar, a rising senior at Harvard University, ­laments the “shrinking of the typical college experience.” Students pay not just for an education, but also for an experience: “The value of college classes relies on the very real value of campus engagement” — asking professors and guest speakers questions, “dining-hall conversations with classmates,” networking, “learning to live with your peers.” So it’s “simply illogical” for so many colleges going online to continue to “charge full ­tuition.”

Mourner: No Pet Is Just an Animal

“It’s just a damn cat, I know,” mourns The Spectator’s Sam Leith. “The world is burning, and people are dying up and down the country, and I’m upset about a cat.” Leith’s friend of 17 years “was a black moggy with a white blaze on her chest, and I called her Henry before I discovered she was female.” Henry “was a standard cat,” fighting “invisible enemies,” stealing socks and scratching furniture. “She was also a colossal pain,” with “random outbreaks of homicidal mania” and meowing “to be let out and to be let back in again, or to be let in and then be let back out again. I loved her.” “Grief for a pet is grief for the vanishing of the tiny unknowable universe that is her consciousness; but it’s also grief for a part of your own life.” Yes, it’s “just a damn cat. And I feel wretched.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board