Make 2023 the year we protect our children

OPINION:

It has been said that this country doesn’t belong to us. We borrow it from our children. Our responsibility to raise the next generation as ready stewards of a strong and free America is one we all share. But we’ve been failing as a nation to protect our children from the powerful influences of the American left.

With the dawn of a new year, we have a new opportunity to change that. Protecting our kids from the dumbing down, coddling, victimhood culture and experimentation of far left should be our top concern.

The overt racism, political indoctrination, social experimentation and the filth they are being taught in schools is robbing our kids of their innocence and ability to achieve. Shackling our children with low standards will prevent them from succeeding in a complex and competitive world. 

Just this week, a school in Virginia was exposed for intentionally failing to tell their mostly Asian and White National Merit Scholarship winners about their awards for years, all in the name of “equity.”

Hundreds of kids’ college admissions and scholarships were affected.

In 2022, parents started pushing back against leftists and racists running our public schools, winning school board elections across the country. In 2023, thousands more school board seats will be up for election, and hopefully, even more parents will run and win on platforms that will reemphasize English language skills, math, history and science.

In 2023, state legislatures have the power to increase school choice, augment parental rights, protect kids from teachers that are mentally and emotionally unstable, and work to reduce the power of public teachers unions. Do those things and scores will go up. They should be top priorities for parents and legislators everywhere.

Our colleges and universities are a massive complex of institutions where leftist ideology is peddled as truth and debate is stifled through intimidation. In 2023, Americans who believe their alma mater lacks intellectual diversity or worse yet, is advocating dangerous racial, political and social agendas, should start withholding donations. We must demand changes to ensure a diversity of opinion and campus environments that respect broad viewpoints.

Let 2023 be the year of new laws to prevent tax dollars from going to drag queens in schools or public libraries and drag or other sexual performances for children. Any sexualized events or performances for children under 18, even if accompanied by an adult, should be outlawed.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was one of the most important moments of 2022, if not the last decade in terms of law and policy. It is reducing the senseless destruction of innocent human life. In 2023, states will debate abortion access, and many will create new laws to protect more children from the industry. While abortion access will still be protected in this country, by the end of the year, as a nation we will be able to say we’re doing more than ever before to save the lives of these children.

With abortion on a downward trajectory, the left has created a new industry and sales pitch to threaten our kids: transgender cultism. The evisceration of gender by the left and normalization of children mutilating and sterilizing themselves is their latest push.

In 2023, Americans must have the courage to tackle this perverse movement and get gender-dysphoric kids the psychological help they need. No more boys competing in girls athletics or tax dollars for trans locker rooms. There are two genders, not 57. Enough excusing mental illness.

The studies are in, and screen time is creating a host of social, health and intellectual challenges for our young people. In 2023, let’s all try harder as parents and grandparents to keep kids off phones and tablets. We must stop using cold technology as babysitters, pacifiers and a replacement for in-person social interaction. The effect of our failure here will be lower academic attainment for our kids, more mental illness, more leftist brainwashing and a lack of social intelligence that could affect them their whole lives.

Let’s ban TikTok too, while we’re at it. We know the Chinese Communist Party-linked company is designed to drive corrosive propaganda and behaviors, particularly toward young people as well as capture a host of sensitive personal data. There’s no reason we should continue to allow it to infect this country.

Let 2023 be the year America stands up for our children again. The investment of our time, money and passion will be worth it. We cannot throw our precious future into the jaws of those whose will stop at nothing to write their own twisted next chapter of American history.

• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV, an author and a former Bush administration official.