Dennis Prager:
There are many reasons Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The four most often cited reasons are the frustrations of white working-class Americans, a widespread revulsion against political correctness, disenchantment with the Republican “establishment,” and the unprecedented and unrivaled amount of time the media afforded Trump.
They are all valid.
But the biggest reason is this: The majority of Republicans are not conservative.
Conservatives who opposed Trump kept arguing — indeed provided unassailable proof – that Donald Trump is not a conservative and has never been one. But the argument meant little or nothing to two types of Republicans: the majority of Trump voters who don’t care whether he is a conservative, and the smaller number of Trump voters who are conservative but care about illegal immigration more than all other issues, including Trump’s many and obvious failings.
So, then, what happened to the majority of Republicans? Why aren’t they conservative?
The answer lies in America’s biggest – and scariest – problem: Most Americans no longer know what America stands for. For them, America has become just another country, a place located between Canada and Mexico.
But America was founded to be an idea, not another country. As Margaret Thatcher put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”
Why haven’t Americans over the past three generations known what America stands for?
Probably the biggest reason is the influence of left-wing ideas.
Since its inception, the Left has opposed the American idea, and for good reason. Everything the American idea represents undermines leftist ideas. And the Left, unlike most Americans, has always understood that either the Left is right or America is right.
America stands for small government, a free economy (and therefore capitalism), liberty (and it therefore allows for liberty’s inevitable consequence, inequality), the “melting pot” ideal, and a God-centered population rooted in Judeo-Christian values (so that a moral society is created by citizens exercising self-control rather than relying on the state to impose controls).
Only America was founded on the idea of small government. But the Left is based on big government.
America was founded on the principle that human rights come from the Creator. For the Left, rights come from the state.
America was founded on the belief that in order to maintain a small government, a God-fearing people is necessary. The Left opposes God-based religions, particularly Judeo-Christian religions. Secularism is at the core of Leftism every bit as much as egalitarianism is.
So, Dennis, who, in the Republican Party stood by and watched while the Left set the agendas in every grade of our public schools?
IF Americans don’t know what America is, whose fault is it?
State education boards approve revisionist history books that smear every value this country used to hold dear.
Over 1/2 of those boards were Republican when the Howard Zinn, Jared Diamond and other propaganda-as-history books were approved for all students.
There are a few new factions on the Right.
The ”alt-right,” is youngish.
They see these Republicans standing by watching Americans being screwed and, using the old ”eros = politics” teaching, equate it with the husband who, not only doesn’t mind knowing his own wife is having sex with someone else, but he wants to watch!
Those are our GOPe.
They don’t mind us being taken for a ride, as long as they have front-row seats AND can retreat to their gated, walled homes safe from the bad actors.
I think the author is preaching a somewhat false “Bizzaro-World theory that is leading him to the wrong conclusion.
The GOPe party leaders since Regan (and, yes some before,) have been working hard to drive conservatives away from the party in order to turn it from an “American” party supporting the “American Dream” into an insider’s NWO controlled party representing only the Washington DC and Street Elite’s “Globalist Dream.” They have been vilifying conservative party members, blocking them out of policy making and actively campaigning to against them in the elections. Now this writer wants to go “Boo-Hoo” beat his chest and pretend that the party base is less conservative because they voted for Trump. It’s all poppycock. The GOP establishment betrayed the conservative base by giving in to everything Obama and the Democrats wanted, and they are being punished for it.
If voters send you to office to represent them, and then when you get there you ignore their wishes and your campaign promises, and instead do what you and your fellow country club elite want to do (worse yet you bend over backwards to do what your opponents want). Well, guess what? The voters will eventually turn on your backstabbing ass. Rubio learned that lesson as will many other GOPe weasels.
Oh, and regardless of what self acclaimed ‘true conservatives’ might say, a good many of those who voted for Trump are indeed still conservatives, but they rejected Cruz because of serious doubts about him. So all you ‘true conservatives’ can just drop your phony “holier than thou’ attitude. Cruz was by no by means a “perfect” conservative candidate, his behind the scenes chicaneries, his over the top efforts to make his theology a focus of how he would rule, and yes doubts among many about whether he is a “natural born citizen” were things that turns some conservatives away, leaving only one of the three remaining candidates as an acceptable choice. That candidate is Trump.
@Ditto: Ditto, I think I mostly agree with you but differ a little. I don’t know what a ‘true conservative’ is. I have been a conservative since 1960, and I know I’m not a neo-con. But am I a ‘true conservative’? I certainly will vote for Trump because no American with a brain would vote for Hillary or Bernie. Both already certified as ‘a disaster’ for the country. What has Trump said he will do or will attempt to do that is against ‘all my principles’? I can’t think of anything he has proposed that I find offensive. Why does someone like me, a conservative (true or not) plan to vote for Trump. Because most Republicans presently in the house or Senate are not serving their citizens. They are only serving themselves. Will Trump appoint conservative supreme court justices? I’m quite sure he won’t appoint liberal ones. Does he know how to run a business? Has he been successful? absolutely.
America is ready for a new message and a new messenger. We are damned tired of the direction the country is headed and Hillary would just be cruise control. She has been proven to be corrupt to the core. Do we want to continue that type of government in the US? I don’t. Are there some things I might not like about Trump? Not nearly as many as the atrocious traits and habits and actions of the present usurper of the president’s office. At least Trump is an American citizen.
@Redteam:
Ask Retire05, I expect she’ll tell you hers. Or maybe Kitt will make it clear where she stands (although I doubt it). Certainly, most people have their own definition which will vary. The reason I use the term “pure conservative” is because there are conservatives who say that ‘if you don’t agree 100% completely with their positions, well than you aren’t a conservative by their definition. I suspect many of these are the same people who take the stance that “if you don’t accept their christian beliefs, then you aren’t really a Christian.’ And we all know people who claim to be conservatives but may only be a “fiscal conservative” and be a raging far-lefty with all other issues. (I think we can all agree that the latter type (neo-cons) are definitely NOT a conservative by any reasonable measure.
I have my own definition of a conservative that I measure others by which I call “Constitutional conservatism.” What I mean by that is: One who believes in a conservative reading of the Constitution which limits the powers and responsibilities allowed governments (Federal, State & Local), with a liberal reading of the Constitution where the freedom and rights of the people are concerned. This is pretty much the same stance the Anti-Federalists demanded of the new government, and most of the Founders agreed.
I cocked a hairy eyebrow at his comment on transgender bathroom use, but he seems to be rethinking that, having not considered that it also encompasses the “wibbly-wobbly “gender-fluidity of exhibitionist boys (or perverted men) joining naked schoolgirls for their showers “because they felt somewhat girlish at the time. (giggle, giggle)”.
@Ditto: #4
“there are conservatives who say that ‘if you don’t agree 100% completely with their positions, well than you aren’t a conservative by their definition”
Ditto, I remember way back when I first traveled through the south as a teenager, with long hair and a motorcycle, I encountered rednecks who thought that since I wasn’t exactly like them, it was okay for them to kill me.
Now I live here, and the rednecks have long hair and motorcycles.
The south has gotten much better over the years, and the north has become what the south used to be.
And politics has become a hellhole, where calm discourse is impossible. Obviously, if you disagree with someone, you are telling them that they are wrong, and that’s a threat to their fragile pride. And so they must lash out, call you names, threaten you…
There will always be people who hate those who are different, it’s a threat to their self-image if someone is different or has different thoughts.
@Petercat:
With haters as with racism, very few large collections of people lack racists or haters.
I do not however consider it hate nor racism to fight against those who want to radically transform this nation, to destroy the bedrock of our society, in order to change it from a Constitutional representative nation of laws and freedom, to a dictatorial nation of tyrannical oligarchs who would do away with freedoms, and use the law to enslave the people.
@Ditto: #6
We are in complete agreement.
@Ditto:
Kitt has made it clear lately that she favors the ‘flaming liberals’. That not my brand of conservatism.
I would also. If it is just a matter of who uses which restroom, that’s one thing, but this about locker rooms, shower rooms, etc is pushing it to never never land. If a person is dressed, and looks like a woman, then who would know if it ‘is’ a woman in a rest room? And vice versa. I’ll say that if I’m in a restroom at Walmart and a person that looks like a man comes into the restroom, I’m not going to look to see if it is ‘really’ a man. I wouldn’t give a damn. I don’t have a wife that takes a shower in a public shower, she does all of those at home in our own bathroom. No pervert is going to be there. We all know there is no such thing as a ‘transgender’ person, only screwed up individuals.
If a student in school tells everyone that they are the opposite gender and want to use a different name, the school can’t even tell their parents? So they can’t even send a report card home to their parents because the school knows them by one name and their parents know them by a different name. Isn’t that so typical of the libs?
So, anyone that says, I’d rather vote for Hillary and doom the country to socialism and crooked politicians than to vote for someone that there is a chance they will be more conservative, is not a ‘true conservative’, they’re not even a ‘fake’ conservative. They’re liberals.
All of a sudden the ”handicapped” shower stalls and bathroom stalls at the gyms are always occupied.
Girls and women who prefer not to give a man a free show are using handicapped shower stalls and bathroom stalls to change clothes at the gyms.
You’d think it would be easier to simply let the transgendered (or trans wannabes) use a single handicapped stall set apart from either the Men’s or the Women’s locker rooms.
And make an exception: they can lug around a bag with all their weird stuff in it on the gym floor.
The rest of us can use lockers.
(Or a few lockers can be placed in public halls for anyone to use.
Sheesh.
Obama HATES women.