Pence’s feel-good ‘school choice’ promo inadvertently revealed a major problem: columnist

During the second night of the Republican National Convention, a sign of the "rot in the American experiment" manifested itself during a segment that featured Vice President Mike Pence speaking with a mother named Sarah, according to Jack Holmes writing for Esquire.

At one point, Pence pointed out that Sarah has been working three jobs to support her child.

"This story was meant to impart the wisdom of 'school choice," where a student in public school can switch to a private institution and the public funds will 'follow' them," Holmes writes. "But the off-hand reference from Pence to the fact that an American citizen has to work three jobs to make a living is telling in its own right."

Holmes contends that the segment wasn't some sort of parable about American perseverance. It's a sign of a society that is broken.

"Sarah shouldn't have to work three jobs, even if they're all part time," writes Holmes. "We need to get people a living wage for their work, part of the discussion that's often missing when opponents of the boosted pandemic unemployment benefits talk about how it will incentivize people not to work. Those same people rarely advocate for raising the minimum wage so that people are paid more to work."

Read the full op-ed over at Esquire.