by Dennis Prager

The only way to save Western civilization is to convince more people that leftism—not liberalism—is a nihilistic force. Quite literally, whatever the left touches it ruins.

So, here is a partial listing of the damage done by the left and the Democratic Party:

The most obvious—and, therefore, the one more and Americans can resonate with—is the near destruction of most American universities as places of learning. In the words of Harvard professor Steven Pinker—an atheist and a liberal—outside of the natural sciences and a few other disciplines (such as mathematics and business), “universities are becoming laughing stocks of intolerance.”

If you send your children to a university, you are endangering both their mind and their character. There is a real chance they will be more intolerant and more foolish after college than they were when they entered college.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can’t be done alone. Find out more >>

When you attend an American university, you are taught to have contempt for America and its founders, to prefer socialism to capitalism, to divide human beings by race and ethnicity. You are taught to shut down those who differ with you, to not debate them. And you are taught to place feelings over reason—which is a guaranteed route to eventual evil.

The left has ruined most of the arts. The following three examples are chosen because they are scatological, a favorite form of left-wing artistic expression. Before the left poisoned the arts, art was intended to elevate the viewer (or listener). But to the left, “elevate” is a meaningless term; it is far more at home depicting urine, fecal matter, and menstrual blood.

In 2011, a lifelike German sculpture depicting a policewoman squatting and urinating—even the puddle is sculpted—received an award from a prestigious German foundation, the Leinemann Foundation for Fine Art.

In 2013, the Orange County Museum of Art in California placed a huge 28-foot sculpture of a dog outside the museum, where it periodically urinates a yellow fluid onto a museum wall.

In 2016, one of the most prestigious art museums in the world, the Guggenheim in New York, featured a pure-gold working toilet bowl, which visitors were invited to use. The name of the exhibit was “America”—so one could literally relieve oneself on America.

Thanks to the left, the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the greatest orchestras in the world, allowed itself to become of a voice of leftist hate last week. It featured the premiere of Philadelphia Voices, “a political rant put to musical garbage,” as some musically knowledgeable Philadelphians described it to me.

In the fifth movement, titled “My House Is Full of Black People,” the black teen narrator chants the following lines: “The county is full of black people/ All wanting to be heard/ While old white men draw lines on maps/ To shut all of them up.” Later in the movement, he yells, “If you would all just f—ing listen!”

Uplifting, no?

On the left, that’s considered art. And, of course, such politicization of the arts is accepted as the norm. Indeed, that’s part of the left’s poisoning of everything—its politicization of everything.

The left is increasingly poisoning sports. In most football stadiums this past season, one could not attend an NFL game without being subjected to left-wing contempt for America and its flag.

So, too, one cannot watch late-night television if one desires to simply be entertained before drifting off to sleep. Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and other hosts have changed late-night TV into left-night TV. Why merely be funny when you can use your monologues to advance your left-wing views?

The left has poisoned mainstream religion. Mainstream Protestantism, non-Orthodox Judaism, and much of the Catholic Church—including and especially Pope Francis—are essentially left-wing advocacy groups with religious symbols.

The left is destroying the unique American commitment to free speech. Almost half of incoming college freshmen do not believe in free speech for what they deem “hate speech” (merely taking issue with a left-wing position is, in the left’s view, “hate speech”). They do not understand that the whole point of free speech is allowing the expression of opposing ideas, including what we consider “hate speech.”

The left has poisoned race relations. America is the least racist multiracial society in the world. On a daily basis, Americans of every race and ethnicity get along superbly. But the black left and the white left constantly poison young minds with hate-filled diatribes against whites, “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” black dorms, black graduations, lies about the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and the like.

The left has made innumerable women unhappy, even depressed, with its decades of lying about how female sexual nature and male sexual nature are identical—leading to a “hookup” culture that leaves vast numbers of young women depressed—and its indoctrinating of generations of young women into believing they will be happier through career success than marital success.

And, in some ways scariest of all, the left is poisoning our children with its commitment to ending male and female as distinct categories. One of the great joys of life, celebrating one’s sex, is now deemed nothing more than a hateful idea in many of your children’s schools.

For these and other reasons, if you treasure American and Western civilization, fighting the left—something all liberals and conservatives need to do—is the greatest good you can engage in at this time.

– – –

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU.