America's national character will have to be changed if progressives are going to implement their agenda.

So, changing social norms is the progressive agenda. To understand how far this has advanced, and how difficult it will be to reverse the inculcation of dependency, consider the data Nicholas Eberstadt deploys in National Affairs quarterly:

America's welfare state transfers more than 14 percent of gross domestic product to recipients, with more than a third of Americans taking "need-based" payments. In our wealthy society, the government treats an unprecedented portion of the population as "needy."