Posted on 03/03/2016 4:52:15 AM PST by LouD
Gratuitous Hatred Is Destroying Republicans Just as It Did the Ancient Israelites By Dennis Prager March 1, 2016 I have been a radio talk-show host for 33 years, nationally syndicated for 18. I have never experienced anything similar to what I am experiencing now. Until recently, the only hate mail I ever received was from a small number of people on the left. The major reason for this, I am convinced, is that I dont yell at callers and I treat callers who disagree with respect.
Reading my e-mails these days is a brand-new experience. I receive hate mail, sometimes laced with obscenities, from Republicans. Most of it comes from Trump supporters, even though whenever I explain my opposition to Trump, I also explain that I understand why so many people support Trump, and even though I ask anti-Trump listeners to respect these Trump supporters.
To show how widespread the hatred among Republicans is, here are excerpts from an e-mail sent by a Cruz supporter in Michigan. He was livid at my having suggested that Cruz consider announcing that he will now back Rubio in order to give Republicans a unified opposition, which is the only chance to stop Trump. I might add that I have said many times that if I could simply appoint a Republican president, it would be Ted Cruz, since he is a true conservative and he doesnt care whether people love him. However, I believe that Rubio at least until this weekend and his imitation of Trumps high-school-level personal insults has been the Republican with the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton.
The listeners e-mail read in part:
Dennis, I cant tell you how p**sed off I am at you for suggesting Cruz drop out in favor of the back stabbing, lying Rubio. You have compromised your own principles. . . . Despicable! A*****es like you . . . lie about if I could appoint a president, it would be Cruz. Screw you and all your Salem colleagues [sic] for pushing the false narrative Rubio is more electable. . . . I am no longer a faithful listener and have switched back to Rush after many years. You have lied by obfuscation, and tried to manipulate your listeners, and for that, I despise you and the other Salem turncoats. You all can go F*** yourselves!
As noted, I have quite a few e-mails from Trump supporters who, after years, even decades, of listening to my show, have decided that I am no longer worthy of being listened to. If one doesnt support Trump, they believe, one is a traitor to the cause.
It is important to point out that I have said over and over that I would vote for Trump if he were the nominee, because it is difficult to conceive of even Trump being worse than four more years of a left-wing president and decades of a left-wing Supreme Court. But to more than a few Trump supporters that is not enough: If you dont support Trump, you are the enemy.
RELATED: The Worrisome Implications of 2016s Insult Campaign
In a nutshell, the hatred and contempt some of the Republican candidates have shown one another is reflected among rank-and-file Republicans. I understand why: Most Republicans view this election as the last chance to save America from becoming the opposite of what it was founded to be. The Left has been eating away at Americas foundational values for nearly a century, and it has been largely successful. Two examples: Seventy percent of college students do not believe in freedom of speech if the speech might hurt someones feelings, and many young Americans support a socialist for president.
Meanwhile, many Republicans believe that only their candidate can turn things around. Therefore, Republicans who oppose their man are regarded as no different from Democrats indeed, perhaps worse.
So this is where we stand today: Many anti-Rubio Republicans regard Rubio as a traitor on the immigration issue and therefore have contempt for his supporters. Many anti-Cruz Republicans regard Cruz as an extremist conservative who is, moreover, a misanthrope, and therefore have contempt for his supporters. And many anti-Trump Republicans perhaps most regard Trump as a dangerous fraud, and therefore view his supporters with contempt.
Needless to say, with these attitudes, there is little chance any Republican can win.
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So, then, despite eight years of failure under a Democratic president, and with Hillary Clinton widely regarded as a completely untrustworthy woman who has put pursuit of money and power above the interests of her country as the Democratic candidate, Republicans will still lose.
And Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves.
In Jewish tradition, there is a famous explanation for the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans in 70 a.d. The ancient rabbis did not blame the Romans. They blamed the Jews. And the reason, they said, was gratuitous hatred Jews hating one another for no good reason.
Bear in mind: Not all hatred is gratuitous. The hatred of evil, for example, is actually the only moral response to evil.
But gratuitous hatred is utterly destructive. And thats what many Republicans now have for one another and what will therefore enable todays Romans, the Democrats, to destroy our country in the year 2016.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code, was published by Regnery. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com. © 2016 Creators.com
Easier to see when typing on iphone
I sadly predict a repeat of events leading up to the 2012 elections. It was acrimonious here. A lot of Freepers were banned for voicing dissent to the candidate championed by the owner of this website. Traitors they were. That is of course his prerogative to run the site as he sees fit, but I was disillusioned to discover that even well-reasoned, if spirited, debates could be banned, and to me that violated the whole spirit of a website that invokes the words of freedom. If we can’t hash out our differences here, then where can we?
I whole-heartedly agree with your analysis .
Neither candidate is perfect, but the alternative party candidate would be disastrous !
Exactly!
I can make up private ‘freepmails’ too... I'm waiting... his is my second attempt....
BINGO
Cruz is a constitutional conservative, Trump is not.
Trump “winning the war” would be a Pyrrhic victory. I don’t want someone who will make deals with democrats and who seemingly has no ideological compass. I want someone who will undo the damage the democrats have done.
I have “made up” nothing.
Prager is missing the bigger picture. The left is no more monolithic than the right. It only seems that way because leaders on the left don’t allow their disagreements to go public with help from their media allies.
Many on the left are also not happy with the way their leaders treat them. Some don’t like gun control, some don’t like illegals, and there are other issues.
These Dems are turning to Trump. As they do so, they tap into the right’s media, like Prager, and behave the way they learned from the left.
I think that’s happening on FR too. People are drifting here and bringing the left’s behavior with them. Look how many posters have joined in the last 4 or 5 years who are involved in the nastiness.
Just spit-balling.
“I hate the so called debates weve been subjected to...”
So do I, but the debates have actually been useful to show us more about the candidates themselves - but probably not in the way they had intended. My estimation of the whole damned lot has diminished.
Well, there have been thousands of comments made here in the last few months.. maybe you can find one or two that back up your contempt for Trump followers.
If it’s as common as you say there must be hundreds of examples.
Clearly you believe what you have chosen to believe, beliefs that are not shared by me.
Try your back yard fence with your neighbor. There is no more appropriate place to "hash out" your differences.
excellent summary. Trump supporters are taking a whole lot on faith, those of us who do not support him see nothing upon which to base such faith. no foundational principles. but vitriol flies if one deviates, and they wonder how the narrative became about hate.
Cruzers on FR are 10x worse, 100x as venomous, vituperative and vicious as the worst Trumpster. To continue to equate those two is the sort of equivalence thing liberals are so good at. It’s typical bully behavior-—bully sucker punches someone, then when the teacher comes acts like the one he punched was equally at fault.
Trump is a threat to ALL of the STATUS QUO when it comes to all things Political Class.
WHAT IS "FAKE" CONSERVATISM AND WHAT IS "REAL" CONSERVATISM?
This is the year, the culmination of the co-opting of WORDS by the Republicans, much as the left has long known how to co-opt and redefine words and control the dialog by controlling the language.
SINCE WHEN was THIS not REAL CONSERVATISM: Make America great, build the military so strong that no one will attack it, stop drugs pouring over the border, stop illegals pouring over our borders and sucking our welfare systems dry, don't let the enemy (muslims) IN like a trojan horse, don't fund their resettlement here, cut the budget, cut the deficit, eliminate waste, fraud and duplication and redundancy, and TAKE CARE OF OUR VETERANS!
THAT is "conservative". ALL OUR LIVES that is CONSERVATIVE.
But...But....we are told NOW by Cruz, Rubio, the RNC, that we are phony conservatives. And that REAL conservatives believe the following:
The Cruzs and the GOPe and the globalists tell us that "real conservative" means "free trade agreements" like TPP, which screw the US to the brink of existence; promote the North American Union; open and uncontrolled borders and immigration; multiculturalism, like resettling muslim Syrians and Somalians by the hundreds of thousands in flyover country. Run trade deficits in the hundreds of billions and growing each year---approved by REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED CONGRESS, giving the LEFT everything on their wildest wish list. Export US jobs to other countries and allow them to ship their products back her with zero tariffs. Accept massive tariffs or complete prohibitions to get our goods into other countries while opening our borders to freely allow other countries to sell their products here with zero tariffs.
If you do not support THESE things, you are not a "real conservative." TRUMP and TRUMP supporters are phony conservatives because we do not support the end of US sovereignty, nationalism and patriotism.
The political class and globalists have twisted it so that Cruz-family globalism (500,000 more H1B highly skilled visas; massive increases in H2 visas for lettuce pickers; taking bribes from the banks who were GIVEN trillions of taxpayer money in 2008; remove all caps on work visas for China, Mexico and India, allowing them to take the remaining US STEM jobs until crony capitalists can finish exporting the jobs entirely.
Specifically you? No. You, and those like you, have attitude and presentation issues.
You cannot simply present your argument and be done with it. You, and many like you, must include derogatory and condescending commentary that you seem to believe will help browbeat those who do not agree with you into eventually succumbing to your viewpoint.
And if someone disagrees with your argument, you continue in on them with the same, or other, ad hominem attacks along with the pointless condescension.
Once that thread has finally run its course, off you go to another thread to repeat yourself. Over and over, day after day. This is the heart of the problem, IMO. Occasionally posting in the aforementioned fashion as you do isn't necessarily a "fatal offense". It's the nonstop harping that has become intolerable, IMO.
Perhaps you see your effort as valiant, purposeful, and necessary. While it may, in the final analysis, be true (or it may not), it's not the effort that is distasteful, it's the methodology and presentation, and you cannot seem to stop it, acknowledge it, or even care.
No, instead, you are the one who has been wronged. You are the victim. Nothing you have done warrants what has come to pass.
Immigration is the biggest problem.
I didn’t say they were sent from God, I said that God is giving us a lifeline, a choice, throwing us a bone.
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