https://victorhanson.com/institutions-breaking-bad/
As a general rule, the Left eventually destroys everything it touches.
It sees all institutions as ideological fodder, to be warped and twisted, as a necessary means to serve higher political ends. Think of an institution that started out in theory as at least neutral, apolitical, and benign, and then ponder how utterly corrupt it has become.
Public Broadcasting. The public was delighted over a half-century ago with the novel idea that it could enjoy drama, documentaries, and in-depth news—without soap and car commercials (as if something can ever be “free” without consequences). Who did not enjoy the importation of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation or the multi-episode version of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius?
Remember the first decade of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report? It was a mostly honest liberal version of the news, delivered by two professional journalists, both superior to a Dan Rather or Peter Jennings.
But by the new millennium, the non-political programming began to become overtly ideological. “Nature” documentaries began plugging manmade, disastrous “global warming” to “climate change” to “climate chaos” themes. The PBS NewsHour house “conservatives” were more liberal than most Democrats of the age.
The quirky Garrison Keillor’s liberal, but interesting radio show, A Prairie Home Companion was finally Trotskyized by #MeToo, along with the blotted-out name of Keillor himself.
Many originally thought that NPR might resemble a more lavishly funded form of a mostly nonpartisan C-SPAN, as envisioned, say, by the talented, fair-minded, and astute Brian Lamb of Booknotes. But listen to NPR now and one would conclude that transgenderism is the new normal, that about four people voted for Donald Trump, that BLM/Antifa are similar to the Elks or Rotary, and the dossier is still “Russian collusion,” and Hunter’s laptop remains “disinformation.”
