How is Dennis Prager still around?

Today, while browsing through Twitter, in between arguments about whose Memorial Day Tweet was the tackiest and Chuck Woolery defending himself from charges of anti-Semitism by saying "hey, you know who else is a Jew? That Bernie Sanders! (Hashtag #Jew, I kid you not.)" I discovered something. Dennis Prager is still around. And someone is paying him to write stuff.

Why Conservatives Still Attack Trump

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by Dennis Prager May 30, 2017 12:00 AM

Okay, first of all, I can't really think of a single prominent conservative that has "attacked" Trump. Well, maybe Joe Scarborough, although he sure as hell fluffed him during the campaign. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and bet that Prager doesn't name any of these so-called "anti-Trump comservatives" anywhere in his column.

Trump is too far from their ideal leader for some conservatives to support him.

When people you know well and admire, and who share your values, do something you strongly oppose, you have two options:
(1) Cease admiring them or (2) try to understand them and change their minds.

Or you could grow the fuck up and realize that you don't have to agree on everything to be friends? Or you could publicly denounce them and excise them from your life? Or you could maybe take a moment to consider that maybe you are the one that's wrong? Honestly, there are way more than two options.

In the case of my conservative friends who still snipe (or worse) at President Trump, I have rejected option one. The reason — beside the fact that I simply like many of them — is what I refer to as “moral bank accounts.”

Every time we do good, we make a deposit into our moral bank account. And every time we do something bad, we make a withdrawal. These conservatives have made so many deposits into their moral bank accounts that, in my view, their accounts all remain firmly in the black.

Well, as we like to say here at the Daily Irritant, name one. Name one positive thing that any of your conservative friends has done.


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That's what I thought.

That means my only choice is option two. But to try to change their minds, I must first try to understand their thinking.

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I have concluded that there are a few reasons that explain conservatives who were Never-Trumpers during the election, and who remain anti-Trump today.

Oh! Oh!~ I know! Is it because they realize that Trump is a walking personality disorder with neither the experience, intelligence nor temperament for the office?

Or wait, wait, is it because their suspicions about Trump's inability to do the most difficult job in the world were confirmed by his laughable performance so far?

The first and, by far, the greatest reason is this: They do not believe that America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake.

Oh. Okay, I was never going to guess that. But in all fairness, you didn't tell me that the mystery took place in 1862.

While they strongly differ with the Left, they do not regard the left–right battle as an existential battle for preserving our nation. On the other hand, I, and other conservative Trump supporters, do.

Ooohhh. so the problem is that they aren't paranoid or delusional enough?
 Or is it that they don't understand what Trump's supporters get instinctively, that this could be their last chance to turn this country back into a Jim Crow, theocratic white man's paradise?

That is why, after vigorously opposing Trump’s candidacy during the Republican primaries, I vigorously supported him once he won the nomination. I believed then, as I do now, that America was doomed if a Democrat had been elected president.

Oh, of course. Gosh, we still may never recover from the growth and prosperity of the Bill Clinton administration, or Barack Obama's righting of the economic ship.  Hopefully, another Bush-style recession can save us!

With the Supreme Court and hundreds of additional federal judgeships in the balance; with the Democrats’ relentless push toward European-style socialism — completely undoing the unique American value of limited government; the misuse of the government to suppress conservative speech; the continuing degradation of our universities and high schools; the weakening of the American military; and so much more, America, as envisioned by the Founders, would have been lost, perhaps irreversibly. 

Oh, yeah. It would be awful if all thoise things that never happened at all even once were allowed to continue to, um. . . happen?
Can you give one example - just one - of the government suppressing Conservative speech? No, you can't. Because it never happened.
Can you give a single example of our military becoming weakened? No, you can't. Because it never happened.
And how many Democrats are pushing for European-style socialism? Even if you caount Independent Bernie Sanders, that's one. You think friend-of-Wall-Street Hillary Clinton was going to push for socialism? I wish! And before you spit on European socialism, I suggest you travel a bit in Europe. Because I've been a few times and people seem perfectly happy there. If European socialism was so dreadful, the citizens of these democratic countries could easily vote to replace it. The fact that

The “fundamental transformation” that candidate Barack Obama promised in 2008 would have been completed by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

And by "fundamental transformation," you mean more people now having the ability to see doctors and get medicine.  Because that's really the biggest change I can think of from the Obama Administration. Oh, my God, what if Hillary had completed this? What if even more people got access to doctors? And medicine?

To my amazement, no anti-Trump conservative writer sees it that way. They all thought during the election, and still think, that while it would not have been a good thing if Hillary Clinton had won, it wouldn’t have been a catastrophe either.

Wow, that really sums up Hillary Clinton in a nutshell. Wouldn't have been great, but not terrible. As opposed to electing a narcissistic man-baby conspiracy theorist with the attention span of a gnat.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Many conservatives, including me, believe that it would have been close to over for America as America if the Republican candidate, who happened to be a flawed man named Donald Trump, had not won. Moreover, I am certain that only Donald Trump would have defeated Hillary Clinton.

So you'd rather have a senile sociopath with serious impulse control leaking classified information all over the globe than a dull, middling centrist who might do what, nominate a judge who would uphold Roe v Wade?

In other words, I believe that Donald Trump may have saved the country. And that, in my book, covers a lot of sins — foolish tweets, included.

Really. This guy?

This is the guy you think is going to "save America?"

Not this guy:




But this guy?

The Never Trump conservative argument that Trump is not a conservative — one that I, too, made repeatedly during the Republican primaries — is not only no longer relevant, it is no longer true.

Really? He became a conservative in 6 months? And you think this mercurial, capricious nature is a positive attribute?

Had any Never Trump conservative been told, say in the summer of 2015, that a Republican would win the 2016 election and, within his first few months in office, appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court; begin the process of replacing Obamacare; bomb Russia’s ally Assad after he again used chemical weapons; appoint the most conservative cabinet in modern American history; begin undoing hysteria-based, economy-choking EPA regulations; label the Iranian regime “evil” in front of 50 Muslim heads of state; wear a yarmulke at the Western Wall;

Um. . .

 I'm not really sure why you get bonus points for knowing the proper headgear to wear to one of Israel's holiest sites, but if you're giving out these points, you gotta give 'em to the last couple guys too.

Also, I don't know why you get any points for appointing the judge that Heritage and the Federalsit society told you to appoint. I mean, contrary to what Mitch McConnell may say, appointing judges is just part of the president's job. And when your party controls the Senate, it's not even a challenging part.
And why anyone gets any points for removing rules that keep the air breathable and the water drinkable and keeps rivers from catching fire is beyond me.

 And you neglected to mention that he also appointed the least qualified cabinet in history.

Anyway, it goes on for a while and I have to turn in, but let me just note for the record that nowhere in this ridiculous screed does Prager mention a single "anti-Trump conservative." So I win that bet!

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