Miranda Devine: The Smithsonian reeks of communist ideologies that our Founding Fathers would be ashamed of

If you wondered how communism has grabbed a foothold in the United States of America of all places, look no further than the Smithsonian Institution.The world’s largest and most influential museum has been hijacked by Marxist ideology to teach self-loathing anti-American woke propaganda to its 20 million annual visitors plus 20 million students a year.The Smithsonian teaches that “politeness,” “punctuality,” “objectivity” and “hard work” is white supremacy, and that Mickey Mouse is a form of blackface, while devoting not one major exhibit to ­George Washington or any of the Founding Fathers.It does teach that Benjamin Franklin was a vile slave owner who owed his discoveries to his slaves and that Christopher Columbus was a psychopathic killer and racist and that we live on ­stolen land.Meanwhile, it celebrates transgenderism, bondage and sadomasochism in various sexually explicit exhibits.It says illegal migrants deserve the right to vote.During the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, the Smithsonian’s woke Secretary Lonnie Bunch sent curators onto the streets to collect trash left behind by arsonists, vandals, looters and useful idiots as “historical artifacts that need to be collected and saved for posterity,” according to the Heritage Foundation, which has been chronicling the downfall of a once-great 179-year-old institution.Generations of American children have been brought up to revere the Smithsonian.

Yet it abuses its $1.3 billion annual budget — 62% from the taxpayer — to persuade impressionable minds that everything about America is irredeemably racist and evil and must be dismantled.And the supercilious congressional testimony this week of Smithsonian boss Anthea Hartig shows that she has no intention of changing a thing.A California transplant who once described herself as “propped up . . .by the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie” has described history as a “prime tool of social justice” an...