Let us consider those angry Americans who make an issue over which public toilet they will use -- and, for that matter, which locker room and personal pronoun they prefer, etc., etc. These Americans do not believe that their choice of the toilet should be a matter of personal hygiene. Rather, they see it as a constitutional matter that ought to be brought before the Supreme Court. It probably will be if Joe Biden is reelected.
Throughout history, Lebensraum of one sort or another has been the stuff of politics, as Vladimir Putin sought to make Lebensraum the stuff of politics back in February of this year, much to his regret. Before Putin, there was Karl Marx, whose conception of politics was based on the grumpiness of the proletariat. Others of a leftist persuasion went further and based their vision of politics on the complaints of the lumpenproletariat. Still, others have based their vision of politics on the superiority of the white race or the superiority of the black race, or the superiority of short people -- Napoleon Bonaparte comes to mind. Yet, only in America could the left become sufficiently infantile as to base its politics on the toilet. Vladimir Lenin in World War I chose the hammer and sickle as the symbol of the Communist Party, and millions of people died for it. Today, the American left has chosen as its symbol a solitary toilet, possibly a toilet on a hill. Flushing their toilet emphatically will now become a revolutionary act.
Many years ago at The American Spectator, we devised a bumper sticker that proclaimed simply "Nuke the Whales." Now, I can imagine the day when the American left will proclaim in all solemnity a bumper sticker urging the enlightened to "Flush the Toilet." Possibly, it will be accompanied by a toilet and a reminder to wash your hands when you have finished, or, if Dr. Anthony Fauci has anything to say about it, to wash your hands and your feet.
Years ago, the British journalist Peregrine Worsthorne claimed communism was not the most poisonous form of politics. Nor was Nazism nor fascism the most poisonous form of politics. The most poisonous form of politics, in his opinion, was liberalism. I doubted his proposition at first. Yet, after watching liberalism evolve in recent years, I have come to agree with Peregrine Worsthorne. Communism, Nazism, and fascism are evil, but there are areas of life in which those evils will never venture. But there is no area of life -- private or public -- where liberalism will not venture, including the realm of sexual identity, even the sexual identity of our children. And everywhere liberalism ventures, it ends in ruin.
Who would have thought that something as idiotic as wokeism would take over the great cities of our country, the education system of our country, the universities, the military, and even the toilet?
The years ahead are going to be difficult. But I have confidence that great men and women can work together to unclog this toilet.
Glory to Ukraine!
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the author most recently of "The Death of Liberalism," published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.