Don't let the breezy title of How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps fool you. There's nothing breezy about Ben Shapiro's incisive commentary on the past, present, and future of the United States. Shapiro is probably best known for commentary on his podcasts and radio show and as a guest on other opinion and news shows, as well as for his sometimes caustic and confrontational college campus appearances. But he excels as a writer, challenging current popular ideas with hard facts from our history.
In How to Destroy America, Shapiro pits the Integrationist view against a Unionist view. The "three steps" are: dismantling equal rights in favor of equality of outcome; destroying cultural values "in favor of a culture of protection by government"; and distorting history by "convincing citizens that America represents fruit of the poisonous tree; that America was founded in evil, and that there is no arc to history."
As Shapiro fleshes out these points, he examines American history while providing current examples of Disintegrationism--and there are plenty. The strongest point overall is (and a point that will sound familiar to Shapiro's listeners) is that in spite of its flaws, the United States is freer and more just than any nation in history. America's so called "original sins" of slavery and genocide have been a part of human history since the dawn of man. But in the American experiment, our founding documents established ideals, and the history of the nation has been a process of reaching those ideals. The United States is not unique because of slavery, for example; it is unique in that it eradicated slavery.
How to Destroy America is a welcome antidote to the liberal indoctrination that permeates academia, journalistic distortions like the debunked yet popular 1619 Project, and the policy proposals spewed by the left. It is substantive and challenging, well worth a read by any American who wants to gain a greater understanding of the roots and history of our nation.
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