Democrats refuse to prioritize REAL infrastructure — like Colonial Pipeline.

Child care is infrastructure, according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Health-care aides for seniors are infrastructure, say Democratic activists. “Anti-racism” is infrastructure, we’re told. But these things aren’t infrastructure; they’re just things Democrats want funded with taxpayer money.

You know what’s actually infrastructure? Bridges and pipelines. On that front, we’re not doing so well.

The shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline this week demonstrated that our actual infrastructure is vulnerable and that our lives can be disrupted quickly when it fails. Hackers, undeterred by the FBI and Homeland Security officials who are supposed to be protecting critical infrastructure, managed to lock down the pipeline controls with ransomware. Fuel deliveries stopped, gas lines formed (shades of the Jimmy Carter era), and prices went up, all within a couple of days.

Fresh from blocking construction of another major pipeline (the Keystone XL), the Biden administration flailed, while a nation that just a year or so ago became a net oil exporter found itself facing fuel shortages. That’s infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Interstate 40 bridge across the Mississippi River also failed this week. The Hernando de Soto span connecting Memphis to Arkansas on one of America’s most important interstate highways is closed until further notice after dangerous cracks were found. Now all traffic is being routed onto the single alternative bridge while officials play catch-up on maintenance. That’s infrastructure.

When the Democrats (with plenty of GOP help) passed the pork-laden “stimulus” bill in 2009, we were promised that infrastructure — actual infrastructure, “shovel ready” stuff in President Barack Obama’s words — would be a priority. That didn’t really happen when Obama administration officials and Democratic activists, as Christina Hoff Sommers reported, realized that most of the “shovel ready” jobs would go to white male construction workers.

“Shovel ready” jobs, they complained, were too “testosterone laden.” The money was reprogrammed to do more for women, mostly in social-service jobs. Things like dams and electrical-grid improvement got shorted.

In The New York Times a couple years ago, Farhad Manjoo called this “Obama’s biggest mistake.” He quoted Reed Hundt, who complained that Obama “chose an economic recovery plan that benefited educated, well-off people much more than the middle class.”

Well, yes. Today’s Democratic Party is run by educated, well-off people for the benefit of educated, well-off people, with a few bones thrown to the poor so as to obtain their votes. It’s no surprise that when given a financial firehose to play with, its leaders chose to spray the money over, basically, themselves. It’s not like what most people want matters.

What most people want from government is pretty simple. They want the streets kept safe and largely pothole-free. They want roads and bridges that work, power supplies that don’t fail, water that’s safe to drink, dams that don’t crack — and gasoline supplies that aren’t at the whim of hostile foreigners.

Instead of fixing potholes, they want you to drive less. Instead of roads and bridges that work, they provide lectures on “systemic racism.” Instead of ensuring reliable gasoline, they want you to drive electric cars — but don’t want to build the power plants needed to power them. Yet instead of safe streets, our political class talks about defunding police. Democrats want to divert money to social workers, professionals with master’s degrees, instead of those icky blue-collar cops.

Protecting Americans against threats from abroad? Ha! Too old-fashioned. Something a Republican would care about.

Our ruling class wants to do anything except its job. But at the risk of sounding like Sen. Warren, I say: Honest, competent government is infrastructure.

When people can count on the government to keep the basics of society running, they’re willing to work hard and invest to get ahead. And when they’re not waiting in line for the essentials of life, they have time to do so.

Roads and fuel let people and goods go where they’re most needed. Safe streets mean the fear of crime doesn’t limit people’s options. Reliable water and electricity keep people healthy and comfortable.

A government that delivers those things — that prioritizes them — is a vital piece of infrastructure for the rest of society to build on. Too bad that’s not the government that we’ve got. And I doubt Biden’s “infrastructure” bill will do anything to make that better.