Conservative
commentator Dennis Prager once made an insightful distinction between the
political left and right. The right, he noted, generally sees the left as wrong
but not evil, whereas the left sees the right not merely as wrong but as evil. This
was a valid assessment once upon a time, but as the left has increasingly exposed
itself in the Trump era as rabidly illiberal, irrational, and immoral, it is
time for the right to acknowledge that the left is not merely wrong, but
evil.
What is
evil? Let us set theological explanations aside for the moment and settle on a
practical definition upon which most can agree: if cruelty means the willful
disregard for human suffering, even taking pleasure in inflicting suffering
on others, then evil is profound cruelty. It is a malevolence so dark and bottomless
that ordinary people cannot fathom it. Psychologists may prefer less
highly-charged terms to describe people who commit unconscionable acts, but
evil is as evil does, and what leftism has done over and over again throughout
history and around the world is provide a worldview which justifies perpetrating
unimaginable horrors on untold numbers of victims.
To be clear: evil
is hardly the sole domain of the left. It can inhabit individuals of any color,
sex, political persuasion, or religious belief. But as an ideology, Progressivism
– the rebranding of Communism – embraces totalitarianism and absolute statist
control, which always and everywhere leads to misery, corruption, and brutality,
and never elevates humanity. Can anyone look objectively at the ghastly devastation
wrought by Communist in the 20th century – the gulags and the mass
starvation, the torture and executions, the existential fear and hopelessness,
the tens of millions dead and countless more lives destroyed – and not conclude
that leftism is an ideology of evil? Add to that its unholy
alliance with fundamentalist Islam today to subvert the whole of Western
civilization, and there can be no doubt.
At the core of the
true leftist is a hatred for anyone and anything that stands in the way of his
or her lust for power over others: the nuclear family, Christianity, the
Constitution, Donald Trump, etc. As David Horowitz had noted on numerous
occasions, during a presidential debate in October 2016, candidate Trump spoke
more naked truth about leftists than any establishment Republican would ever
have dared when he said that his opponent Hillary Clinton had “tremendous
hate in her heart.”
