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 don’t 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 doesn’t care whether people love him. However, I believe that Rubio – at least until this weekend and his imitation of Trump’s high-school-level personal insults – has been the Republican with the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton.
The listener’s e-mail read in part:
Dennis, I can’t 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 colleague’s [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 doesn’t 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 don’t support Trump, you are the enemy.
RELATED: The Worrisome Implications of 2016’s ‘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 America’s 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 someone’s 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.
RELATED: Stop Defending Trump’s Poisonous ‘Middle-Finger Politics’
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 that’s what many Republicans now have for one another — and what will therefore enable today’s 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
The attitudes are stoked by the hate mongers at National Review and other GOP establishment and NeoCon organs.
Anyway.
"So, then, despite eight years of failure under a Democratic president, and with Hillary Clinton Donald Trump — widely regarded as a completely untrustworthy woman man who has put pursuit of money and power above the interests of her country anyone but himself — as the Democratic Republican candidate, Republicans America will still lose.
Fixed it
Nothing has changed much...1983 NYT…
“His alternating skills of charming some individuals and riding roughshod over others has earned Donald Trump a reputation in some quarters as someone not to be trusted. He reneged, for example, on a promise to donate to a museum the Art Deco bas- reliefs on the facade of Bonwit Teller’s - bulldozed to make way for Trump Tower. It was a sin deemed unforgivable by landmark preservationists. But the only negative comments about Donald Trump these days are given off the record.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/07/business/the-empire-and-ego-of-donald-trump.html?pagewanted=all
why? might have something to do with intimidating lawyers whose boss loves and enjoys lawsuits. The same person who wants to loosen those rules.
If people can put aside their strict principles on the constitution, TPP, TPA, and Corker to vote for Cruz, who wasn’t even naturalized until he was in high school when his mother finally filed the paperwork - then those same people should be able to put aside some principles for Trump. If Cruz won the nomination I would not be happy but I would still vote for him.
More and more Trump supporters are wishing death upon Americans
Soon Trump supporters will hate everyone
The thing that I think is hardest to deal with are the accusations repeated over and over again, which are not supported by any details of why the accusation is made, or more accurately, what the factual basis for it is.
To claim Trump did not disavow the KKK is never supported.
The claim that Cruz is a chronic liar is never supported.
They are merely repeated over and over and never discussed in an open and rational manner.
If we do not address the real issues in the campaign with the serious and life-threatening issues confronting the USA on the national and international sphere, we are going down.
Though I would pick Cruz, I very much appreciated Trump’s recent statement about his health care initiative. That is something I can evaluate and actually use in my decision-making for a candidate.
They all need to step away from the platitudes and start making proposals.
Just my opinion.
Abortion has a lot of parallels with the Hallacust.
Eminent Domain is certianly communistic in nature.
You have no leg to stand on with your belittling the boys of WW2.
They were fighting for Liberty.
We dishonor them with our complacency. You dishonor them by misrepresenting what they were fighting for.
Look at the scores of boys that lied about their age to go fight.
Your post shows one thing for sure, Trump, Cruz, Hillary, Bernie, Biden, Rommney, aren’t going to change one single thing, not as long as we are so easily mislead by words and refuse to see deeds.
Ronald Reagan has words for you.
“A man who is 75-80% on my side is a valued Friend and Ally, not my enemy”.
Curious Jack
What in the last 40 years have any GOP President done to stop the ever increasing number of Abortions?
I know this falls on deaf ears at Team Cruz but the fact remains, We are a Constitutional Republic that rests on the notion that the people’s Representatives in Government know how to compromise and negotiate. Cruz record demonstrates a total inability to actually govern anything.
This notion that Cruz will ride into DC and dictate his 100%er terms to everyone else there is simply wishful thinking.
Really think Clinton, “Cult of Sanger and Abortion”, is going to REDUCE the number of abortions or is she going to do things that will massively increase them?
This “Never Trump” meme is the behavior of petulant children looking to spite everyone because their desires were not granted. It has nothing at all to do with anything resembling principals or reason.
Ronald Reagan has words for you.
“A man who is 75-80% on my side is a valued Friend and Ally, not my enemy”.
Curious Roman
What in the last 40 years have any GOP President done to stop the ever increasing number of Abortions?
I know this falls on deaf ears at Team Cruz but the fact remains, We are a Constitutional Republic that rests on the notion that the people’s Representatives in Government know how to compromise and negotiate. Cruz record demonstrates a total inability to actually govern anything.
This notion that Cruz will ride into DC and dictate his 100%er terms to everyone else there is simply wishful thinking.
Really think Clinton, “Cult of Sanger and Abortion”, is going to REDUCE the number of abortions or is she going to do things that will massively increase them?
This “Never Trump” meme is the behavior of petulant children looking to spite everyone because their desires were not granted. It has nothing at all to do with anything resembling principals or reason.
The problem is neither is trump He wants to use the government to fix things that it should just stay out of I am bed sad that in the primaries even real conservatives are caught up in the cult of personality following trump He is entertaining and gores everyone’s ox but at the end of the day even his supporters admit he is not a conservative
Screaming a lie loudly does not change it to truth.
Try making a case for your candidate and drop the hysteric personal attack posts like that one and people might start taking you seriously.
Until then you will be treated as just another irrelevant screaming child.
If Trump is destroyed and Hillary is elected there will be revolution
The problem does not lie with Patriots but with the blind and/or corrupt GOPe of which Dennis Prager is a mouthpiece. Marco Rubio is a traitor. Those who support Rubio are Globalist enemies of the United States of America. Folk at FR know that...whether Trumpsters or Cruzers. Dennis Prager represents those who would destroy our sovereignty. What he thinks means nothing to me. He and his Globalist friends have ruled our Country for many years but now we’re finished with them. Go cry to the GOPe globalist/neo-cons at National Review or Red State or go Third Party with the boys at the Weekly Standard. Dennis Prager has very little cred around here.
Can someone explain to me why so many posters have glommed on to the "hate" theme? That is the language of the looney left.
Anybody?
I would suggest that the GOP has lied to us for decades, and the hatred is due to the GOP establishment. I think most if not all of us on FR can agree to that. The divisiveness here is based on the candidates and the possibility that once again, we might get screwed. Thus, the teeth gnashing at each other.
I agree with Dennis that potty mouth has no place in our debate. It is a hallmark of the Left. You can’t get two paragraphs into anything they’ve written without being assaulted by F-bombs.
People don’t get it. Trump is the 1st wave in a multi wave attack. Trumps job is to smash the defense and open the road so the follow up waves can reach the objectives.
I hear what you said about Cruz often, that he was not successful.
What is a Senator, who is one of 100, supposed to do to be successful?
He advocated and gave extended filibuster for conservative causes on the Senate Floor.
There were more RINOs in the Senate than he could defeat since he had one vote.
What in you mind, is a victory under such conditions?
Advocacy, though unsuccessful, can be the seed of a movement to get other like-minded people into office.
But to say he did not pass any legislation is to say that one Senator cannot rule the Senate.
And there you have it. Reasoned debate and civil discourse, Trump-style.
I don’t listen to radio talk show. I don’t have the time anymore. Is it normal for conservative hosts to plot against other conservatives running for office?
Telling Cruz supporters that their candidate should drop out so Rubio supporters (open border globalists) can beat the Trump supporters - all who listen to his show (except maybe Rubio “moderates”) - seems nutty to me. That he’s surprised to be getting negative feedback from conservatives is even nuttier.
If I were one of his listeners this is the message I would hear: Don’t vote for the two conservative candidates (Cruz and Trump) and throw your support to the open borders Rino (Rubio). Maybe Prager was at the Fox meeting with conservative media people, about talking up amnesty and Rubio.
We live in interesting times.
Maybe because many Anti Trumpers throw out that attack at Trump regularly. People are merely pointing out the hypocrisy of accusing the other side of what their own side is doing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.