More from the OpEd...

... Construction workers, hotel maids, gas station attendants and store cashiers will typically earn more than $20 an hour plus evening or weekend bonuses, about five weeks' paid vacation each year, a pension, maternity and paternity leave that add up to a year and paid leave when a child is sick. You may even get paid time off if you move homes.

Those are broadly the terms for Norwegian and foreign companies alike, including the likes of 7-Eleven shops, Burger King restaurants and ExxonMobil-affiliated gas stations. Which raises the question: If American and other international firms can offer such munificent terms for retail jobs in Norway, could they do so in our country?

We'll get to that, but what unfolds here is a result of the Nordic social and economic model, which aims to reduce inequality, boost opportunity and optimize the quality of life -- providing a lift, in particular, for those at the lower end of the income scale.

What we tend to think of as "low wage" jobs aren't truly low-earning in Norway, and they also come with state-provided health care and child care, plus strong unions that ensure that layoffs or firings are rare.

You want security, health care and the American dream? Look to Scandinavia. ...

@#1 ... Vance argued that many Americans turned to Trump as a "pain reliever" following mounting distrust in the government and economic decline. He called Trump's political appeal at the time, "cultural heroin," and predicted that supporters would eventually realize he was not necessarily the answer to their problems. ...

While his comment looks mostly correct, I think he failed to take into account the "members of a cult" aspect of MAGA, and the typical reluctance of cult members to leave a cult.

More from the article ...

... The newspaper is part of the Department of Defense, and its reporters are Pentagon employees. But it has long maintained editorial independence from the top brass. "We're trying to provide independent news for the military community," Slavin said. ...

The paper has been published continuously since World War II, heralded as representing "the free thought and free expression of a free people."

But this past January, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell posted this on X: "We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century. We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale ... "

Asked what he understood "woke distractions" to mean, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin replied, "I really don't know what they were referring to, because they didn't explain it." ...