If a competition were held to determine what is the most egregious betrayal of America perpetrated by the Marxist left, which has infiltrated and subverted pretty much every major institution in the nation, there’d be many candidates.

Like the engineered foreign invasion of America across her southern border by millions of illegals to create a permanent Democrat voting majority. And the weaponization of this nation’s best-in-the-world justice system to persecute conservatives, Christians and Trump supporters while giving a green light to criminals, crazies and violent revolutionaries. And the multifaceted corruption of America’s election system. And the government promotion and funding of surgically mutilating our children. And the catastropically perverse craze of “defunding the police.” And so on.

There would be many worthy contenders.

But there’s one betrayal – by virtue of its sheer magnitude and the egregious harm it inflicts on so many millions of young people over such an extended period of time – that is arguably the worst of all.

Every day, parents throughout America send their precious children off to their local public schools, imagining their kids’ days will be filled with reading, writing and arithmetic, along with science, history, sports, music and group recreation, just like when they attended school decades ago.

After all, in bygone eras public-school classrooms were generally patriotic, perhaps even reverent, each school day opening with a prayer to Almighty God (until the Supreme Court killed that practice in the 1960s). And of course, students and teachers would put their hands over their heart and pledge allegiance to the flag, and maybe sing “God bless America” or “You’re a grand old flag.” After that, punctuated two or three times by recess and lunch, would come hours of listening, reading, discussing, learning, doing – and at some point, testing. The knowledge base and skills thus acquired served as a foundation for all that would come later in life. Far from perfect, but it worked.

That was then. Today, what are still euphemistically called “public schools” – and remember, “public” means “government” – have been transmogrified into far-left ideological, political and religious indoctrination centers aimed at reprogramming and completely transforming America’s children.

Does that sound exaggerated? Sorry, but if anything it’s understated. Stay with me

Let’s briefly step inside today’s “hallowed halls of learning,” where most American children spend the major part of their young lives, and consider the dystopian reality of “public education” in 2023.

Far from beginning the school day with an acknowledgement of God and any sincere expression of reverence for their uniquely blessed country, students in thousands of schools today are literally taught to hate America. Children increasingly are programmed, via various anti-American curricula – including the notorious “1619 Project” K-12 curriculum already in use in at least 4,500 U.S. public schools – to loathe and feel ashamed of their own country as white supremacist, racist and even genocidal. They’re indoctrinated to regard all white people as intrinsically racist, or at best as unjust beneficiaries of “white privilege” and therefore still personally guilty for America’s deeply entrenched “systemic racism.” That of course is the central premise of Marxist “critical race theory,” which proposes to solve the “problem” of America by dismantling and restructuring all of the major institutions that comprise what is, in reality, the least racist, most successful multi-ethnic nation in world history.

Continuing our tour of today’s public schools, one soon encounters what all previous generations of Americans would have regarded as the criminal sexual abuse of children. This starts, almost unbelievably, in preschool when confused and intimidated parents take their highly impressionable young children – even babies – to “drag queen” events, during which obviously mentally deranged – and in truth, demonically possessed – men dressed as women corrupt society’s most vulnerable members with degenerate, and often overtly sexual, indoctrination and “entertainment.”

Fast forward a few short years: Frequent news stories document the overt LGBT grooming craze now sweeping the nation’s public schools. Openly activist LGBT teachers post recruitment videos of themselves on social media platforms like TikTok, their greatest desire being to shepherd new young recruits into the fold. Then, to complete the job, there are the after-school “support clubs” or “GSAs” – formerly called “gay-straight alliances,” but more recently, as the transgender craze has metastasized, rechristened “gender and sexuality alliances” – which in reality are straight-up, in-school recruitment hubs.

Often teachers “protect” the children they have seduced into gender “transitioning” from meddlesome parental interference by purposefully keeping mom and dad in the dark. Indeed, almost 6,000 public schools have adopted policies of concealing students’ “gender transitions” from their own parents. Once again, not long ago such behavior would have been prosecuted as an egregious child sex crime and worse – punishable by years in prison. Today, it’s all part of “woke” public education.

Time to go to the school library? When kids walk through the library doors, they can expect to encounter explicit pornography, proudly and prominently displayed – books such as “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, which graphically depicts multiple lesbian sex acts and equates the scars from “top surgery” (where a young girls’ breasts are cut off) to having cool tattoos. Another popular book is “Flamer” by Mike Curato, featuring a boy explicitly describing various homosexual acts. And then there’s “Let’s Talk About It” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, detailing how to perform homosexual sex, even guiding children in how to accomplish “sexting” – that is, sending sexually explicit texts and images of themselves to others.

In between all this leftwing indoctrination and sexual corruption, teachers take time to scare children to death about the near-term end of life on earth due to “catastrophic climate change.” It doesn’t matter that it’s not true. Rendering children fearful, anxious and radicalized serves the elites’ core purpose of wresting authority over kids from their parents. Indeed, it has long been the heart and soul of Marxism/communism to hold the nuclear family in contempt while insisting children rightfully belong to the state, which then is responsible for indoctrinating, re-directing and re-creating them.

No wonder every measure of pathology, from anxiety to depression to suicidality, is skyrocketing in America’s young people today. U.S. teen girls are experiencing a particularly disturbing rise in “sadness and violence.”

“But wait,” many may still ask in desperation: “What about the ‘3 Rs’ – reading, writing and arithmetic? Surely those basic skills are still being taught in today’s public schools, and such totally non-political disciplines can’t easily be messed with by the crazies on the left. Right?”

Wrong.

Even the most essential – and in the case of mathematics, purely logical – subjects are being corrupted at breakneck speed, in the service of the new American Marxism.

Epitomized by Brooklyn College’s math education Professor Laurie Rubel, who claims the whole notion that two plus two equals four “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy,” today’s public school curriculum developers are succeeding in generating a new version of the “3 Rs” that are, quite literally, insane.

If that sounds hyperbolic, consider what Rubel posted to her Twitter followers in 2020: “The idea that math (or data) is culturally neutral or in any way objective is a MYTH. … Along with the ‘Of course math is neutral because 2+2=4’ trope are the related (and creepy) ‘Math is pure’ and ‘Protect math.’ Reeks of white supremacist patriarchy. I’d rather think on nurturing people & protecting the planet (with math in service of them goals).”

So, going against the official state orthodoxy and insisting that “two plus two make four,” as did Winston Smith, the main character in George Orwell’s “1984,” makes one a “white supremacist” in today’s America.

Such Marxist madness as this, so bizarre it could develop and flourish only in the rarefied air of super-“woke” far-left academia, has now seeped out into public education, from high school all the way down to preschool. Thus, in Oregon, to cite just one example, the state’s education department promotes “A Pathway to Math Equity,” which purports to train teachers in how to “dismantle racism in mathematics instruction.” Yes, really.

“We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry out our professional responsibilities,” declares the teachers’ guide, which demands that educators take responsibility for “visibilizing the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.” The main “toxic characteristic” being the old-fashioned focus on getting the “right” answer.

“The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” declares the course’s “toolkit,” “and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

All of this, of course, is utterly and droolingly deranged.

Meanwhile, just as with “white supremacist” math, Rutgers University has determined that speaking and writing English correctly is also racist. The school’s English department has altered its grammar standards to “stand with and respond” to the Black Lives Matter movement and emphasize “social justice” and “critical grammar” over irrelevancies like correct spelling and grammar.

The new “critical grammar” approach challenges the standard form of the English language in favor of a more “inclusive” writing experience, noting “the curriculum puts an emphasis on the variability of the English language instead of accuracy,” as the Washington Free Beacon reported. The English Department is even offering an internship titled “Decolonizing the Writing Center” to make writing “more linguistically diverse.”

In trying to come to terms with how intelligent, educated people in the world’s freest and most advanced nation can possibly embrace such fantastically dumb concepts, Orwell’s “1984” actually provides a vital clue. In response to the seemingly impenetrable question of why the ruling elites insist that “two plus two make five,” Orwell explains: “It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. … the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.”

In other words, it’s all about power. Consider that pressuring and intimidating people into embracing an obviously deluded position, such as “two plus two make five,” is a powerful way to not just control but corrupt their minds, essentially forcing them to abandon reality and “bend the knees of their mind” to the ruling elites’ will.

If this obsession with ultimate power to the point of total insanity sounds familiar, it’s because the denial of objective reality by “the Party” in “1984” – which to those in power confers the delusion they can control not just people’s minds, but also reality itself, like gods – is very much the political, psychological and spiritual identity of the modern Democratic Party.

All this is especially chilling in light of Abraham Lincoln’s famous observation that “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

So, what can you do?

For starters, see and speak the truth – with courage and love, but not hate. That will keep you sane.

Protect your family and loved ones. Find and contribute to a decent Christian subculture in which to raise your children and grandchildren.

Most urgently, take them out of the public school system.

Don’t delude yourself by insisting, “I’ve been to my child’s school and I know the principal. She’s a Christian!” Or, “I went to back-to-school night and met my kids’ teachers – they’re great!” You’re dreaming; it’s time to wake up.

If you love your children, take them out of the regime indoctrination centers. Those in charge of today’s government schools see themselves, in effect, as the “gods” of our society and its future, intent on re-creating your children in the regime’s image. However, they are not gods, but rebels against God, which makes them both deluded and corrupting in their influence on your children.

In truth, these are dark, dangerous, tumultuous times. America is in the middle of what some are calling a “soft communist revolution,” and how it’s ultimately going to turn out is unknown.

One thing you can do, however, is refuse to knowingly sacrifice your children to it.

Possibly you’ll find a Christian school that is both worthy and affordable for you, but from personal experience, I would recommend homeschooling.

While public school students are in serious danger to their mental health and wellbeing in today’s public education system, a 2021 peer-reviewed Harvard study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE shows that, compared to their peers attending public schools, “adolescents who are homeschooled are more likely to report greater character strengths and fewer risky health behaviors later in life.”

There is an enormous amount of help online for parents considering homeschooling their children, and the ranks of homeschool families are growing rapidly.

“In my opinion,” sums up Christian actor and bestselling author Kirk Cameron, “the public school system has become public enemy number one.” Last year, Cameron produced a movie called “The Homeschool Awakening,” and the two-minute trailer gives viewers a vivid sense of exactly why homeschooling is so strongly resonating with many parents today.

More broadly, popular podcaster and columnist Jason Whitlock, recently appearing on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” – before the powers-that-be at Fox News killed off their most popular program – offered some biblical advice to good Americans regarding the increasingly deranged “woke” culture all around them.

Quoting 2 Corinthians 6:17, Whitlock counseled, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.”