Isn’t it funny how the Left’s solution to any given challenge — poverty, crime, environmental health, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, you name it — just happens to be the exact same slate of policy demands?

Over the years, Democrats have grown increasingly brazen about positioning their domestic agenda as the cure for everything that ails America, and the COVID-19 outbreak has spawned some of the most shameless manifestations of that tendency yet.

From the Washington Free Beacon comes word of a list of demands issued by the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), a teachers’ union in North Carolina, before they’ll agree to resume in-person classes:

Included in the DAE statement was a call to adopt a variety of far-left policy goals before holding in-person classes, including Medicare for All and “direct income support regardless of immigration status.”

“There are concrete policies that have permitted other countries to flatten the curve and return to public life: moratoriums on rent and mortgage, universal health care, direct income support regardless of immigration status,” the statement reads. “We must fight together, collectively, for changes that will permit our communities to thrive during this pandemic and beyond.”

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The union’s statement also calls for a full shutdown of the state, saying “until that is done, remote learning should remain the default.”

The district did not respond to a request for comment.

Gee, I wonder why.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their insane ultimatum is wildly disproportionate to the “danger” from which they’re pretending to protect children:

Kids have almost no risk from COVID.

Even in New York City deaths for ages 0-25 remain flat versus past 5 years.

Open the schools! pic.twitter.com/UxHd4NczBQ

— Real Developments (@pdubdev) July 17, 2020

“Once again, teachers’ unions are distorting the facts to accomplish their agenda that puts special interests first and kids last,” responded North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Tim Wigginton, and…yeah, that’s about the size of it.

It’s no secret that the interests of children have been near the bottom of teachers unions’ priority list for a long time, with their true passions being (1) personal enrichment, and (2) implementing the Democrat Party platform piece by piece, no matter how little relation any of its planks have to children or learning.

For years, the National Education Association has advocated and donated heavily to a wide range of left-wing causes.

Here’s a partial list of organizations it’s supported in the past, courtesy of our friends at David Horowitz’s invaluable website Discover The Networks:

In recent years, NEA has also contributed money to a wide variety of leftwing advocacy groups, including: ACORN, the AFL-CIO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Campaign for America’s Future, the Center for Community Change, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Democracy Alliance, the Economic Policy Institute, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the Human Rights Campaign, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the National Partnership for Women & Families, the National Urban League, the National Women’s Law Center, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Service Employees International Union, the Sierra Club, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, USAction, the Voter Participation Center (formerly called Women’s Voices-Women’s Vote), and the WAND Education Fund.

Last year, the NEA even formally endorsed a “fundamental right to abortion.” Once you’ve crossed that line, holding education hostage for the sake of socialized medicine and subsidized illegal immigration is pretty small potatoes.

The Durham community will of course ultimately have to do whatever is in accordance with the will of a majority of parents, but here’s hoping that voters keep one takeaway in mind: if the district’s teachers are willing to go along with a union this insane, maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to keep them away from your kids.