New Article: Dennis Prager and James Robison: Finding Alt-Right Christian “Safe Spaces” in Trumpworld
David Shasha
Dennis Prager and James Robison: Finding Alt-Right Christian “Safe Spaces” in Trumpworld
I have a very bad habit as I watch television, especially in the early morning, to seek out Christian Fundamentalist programs on the local channels.
These days it is usually checking in with Pauline antinomian Anti-Semites like Jimmy Swaggart and Les Feldick.
Faith without Works is very much in vogue in these lawless times of Trump and the New Fascism:
https://reasonabletheology.org/apostle-paul-impact-salvation-faith-alone/
It is a doctrine that negates the Mosaic Covenant and Jewish Law, supplanting it with a new Salvation doctrine centered on belief in the absolute divinity of Jesus Christ:
Scripture teaches that we are justified by faith alone. The writings of Paul show the practical implications that this doctrine has on how we are to live the Christian life. Knowing that we did not earn our own salvation makes us humble rather than spiritually prideful, which causes us to act lovingly towards believers and unbelievers alike.
It is important to keep this exclusive Christian doctrine of Faith Without Works in mind as we navigate the current socio-political scene.
I was recently flipping through the channels and landed on James Robison’s “Life Today” program, and who did I see there – our dear friend Dennis Prager, who I have called the new CEO of Jews for Jesus:
https://www.tbn.org/programs/life-today-james-robison/watch/dennis-prager-no-safe-spaces
His appearance with Robison fully bears my assertion out.
Prager is one of the Trumpscum Jews who take great pride in their “conversion” to the New Christian Fascism:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/prager/davidshasha/5I7YJ1iYSMU/UKPPNA-SDwAJ
The following article from David Suissa’s Jewish Journal of Los Angeles makes clear how deeply he admires the Christian Anti-Semites as he lays out a heartfelt apologia for their extremist values:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/prager/davidshasha/l6JDfmTIJr4/BbHSZ98-qoUJ
We just marked the one-year anniversary of the Trumpdeath in Pittsburgh which helps to put all this into perspective:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/mXzIzNyMmDo
It is worth recalling that, in the immediate aftermath of the Synagogue massacre, Prager was once again right there to defend Trump, the Evangelicals, and the Alt-Right:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/prager/davidshasha/7yaQkPq5zDA/1beQJrI5BgAJ
Prager signed up with the Right Wing extremist publisher Regnery, which has given him an intimate connection with the world of the radical religious fanatics:
https://www.regnery.com/book-author/dennis-prager/
He has published two books of Biblical commentary, misleadingly called “The Rational Bible,” that, as he boasted on the Robison program, are currently being sold at Costco!
Looking at the audience it was clear just how much his Yiddish-inflected comedy shtick appealed to them.
The Robison appearance was to promote his new book and documentary “No Safe Spaces”:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/dennis-prager-documentary-no-safe-spaces
A clip from the movie proudly featured our friend Bill Maher, anti-PC scourge:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/OAiKDUEMRUQ/uf6bnWH0DQAJ
Perhaps more pointedly, he highlighted Jordan Peterson, hero of the Right.
I mentioned Peterson in the following article on Jonathan Haidt that looks at the whole “Safe Space” college brouhaha:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/beoLJaoDawA/hCVdyG9mCwAJ
While Prager has so very cunningly stoked the anti-PC flames, he and the Religious Right continue to mark their own “Safe Space” territory.
We have also seen how fellow Trumpscum Jew Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, proudly representing Tikvah Fund values, has teamed up with Christian radicals like Senator Mike Lee in a strategic Trumpist alliance:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/Pil9L08j0UU/AexMyge7AAAJ
The Tikvah Fund representatives, like Prager, are allied to Trumpworld through institutions like the Hobby Lobby Bible Museum:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/Ra16uogXog8/XAmc0RlgEQAJ
It is all part of what I have called the New Convivencia; a place where radical Neo-Con Jews can connect with their radical Christian peers in a very “Safe Space”:
As I have written, it is a frontal assault on the noble tradition of Sephardic Jewish Humanism.
Speaking to Robison, Prager heaped lavish praise on Donald Trump, and sort of gave the game away when he admitted that on election night 2016 he turned off his beloved FOX News and went exclusively to the “Liberal” cable news channels.
It was, he pithily said, to bask in Schadenfreude, as he wanted to see Suffering Liberals:
https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Liberals-Again-Funny-T-Shirt/dp/B07GCBDLV2
Indeed, there is now even a t-shirt for that very particular form of Schadenfreude!
Prager and the Trumpist Religious Right emphatically decry the “Safe Spaces” on college campuses, but neglect to admit that they too have their own “Safe Spaces” and their own security blankets to comfort them as they huddle closely together.
Of course, there is the FOX News echo-chamber, which is augmented by the Right Wing Talk Radio echo-chamber:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/02/conservative-talk-radio-book
More than this, the Radical Right makes use of their religious institutions to stifle Free Speech and curtail Civil Rights:
Indeed, it is currently all the rage to speak of Religious Liberty, as if there is some Stalinist government agency that is closing all the Churches.
Once again, we turn to Meir Soloveichik for the straight poop:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/SvAkVwHpJUU/y50PJbkPBAAJ
The hypocrisy of the Christian zealots in the matter has been pointed out repeatedly:
“Religious Liberty” means the freedom of those zealots to persecute others and impose their own parochial values on the country.
What has now changed is the way that the Neo-Con Jewish extremists, in passionate love with Trump, have become one with the Christians; the same Supersessionist Christians who pretend to “love” the Jews for the sake of their Rapture:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-evangelicals-love-israel
Christians like Ultra-Zionist radical John Hagee:
The Jewish and Christian Trumplackeys all celebrated at the new Trump Embassy in Jerusalem:
It was thus not at all shocking to see Prager and Robison luxuriating in their common messianic values.
The Neo-Con Jews have long ago made their peace with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and savior of the world:
There has even been an outpouring of books on the “Jewish Jesus,” including one from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, yet another Trumpscum Jew:
While this love of Jesus is now common on the Neo-Con Jewish Right, it also exists in the world of academic Judaic Studies where Left Wingers like Daniel Boyarin are promoting their own form of the New Convivencia; seeking to elevate Christianity over Rabbinic Judaism:
Boyarin has also published a popular work on the subject entitled The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ:
https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Gospels-Story-Christ/dp/1595588787
His essay “Semantic Differences; or ‘Judaism’/’Christianity’” makes the point crystal clear:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RhtZpTp-oMoItjmoUNBe9K8G7dazVgPz/view?ths=true
The attack is unleashed with brevity and great hubris:
Judaism, I will argue (and so do many scholars today), is not the parent religion to Christianity; indeed, in some respects the opposite may be true. Nor can we speak of a religion, Judaism, at all in the sense of a bounded institution existing before the Christian era (and even fairly deep into that era), of which it could be said to be hostile to any one thing.
That is as straightforward an assertion of the point as we have seen in the scholarship, as it militantly subordinates Judaism to Christianity, and turns the Talmudic tradition into utter disarray, Hefker.
Monolingual Social Science doctrinal dogma has overtaken the pluralistic Open Text of Rabbinic Midrash, as I have discussed in my article on Rabbi SHAGAR and the fraud of Ashkenazi Post-Modernism:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/de-xEWk9-XE
Along with that article I presented a comprehensive resource sheet on the traditional Rabbinical approach as it relates to Post-Modernism, which is quickly being obliterated by academic scholars and messianic Zionists alike:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/c9R-YEtWsCA
Atavism now rules the roost, and the expansive Midrashic vision is being forcefully subordinated to static historical reconstructions of ancient theological doctrine.
As I have said before, we are now seeing the Left become Right as Trumpworld Fascism throws everything into confusion.
What has become all too clear is that Jewish thinkers have abdicated the basic truths of Judaism in favor of an apparently deep-seated need to curry favor with Christians.
While academics like Boyarin seek to whitewash Pauline antinomianism and attack the integrity of the Talmudic heritage as “belated,” Neo-Cons like Prager proudly seek common cause with Trumpworld Christian extremists like James Robison as they unite to promote lawlessness and the radical religious agenda which has been used by Trump as a smokescreen to hide his own personal corruption and degenerate profligacy.
Robison and Prager present to us the image of Useful Idiots who genuflect to Trump in a demonic union of pathological malfeasance and deeply anti-democratic corruption.
We have seen how Alan Dershowitz has very enthusiastically added his name to this illustrious list of deplorables:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/xXvTbXnihcw
Dershowitz’s shyster PILPUL tactics reflect his own deep-seated commitment to Trumpworld, which was on full display when he appeared at the annual conference of the Steamboat Institute:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/Davidshasha/pKSuJsQd6Rc/JCeaG1xVBgAJ
Dershowitz and Prager were born into the same Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish world that they have since abandoned, but which continues to strongly figure into their reactionary worldview:
https://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/234139/dennis-prager-talks-interpreting-torah/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264596
It is therefore not at all surprising that they both scream about Free Speech at the very same time that they are so deeply tied to political and religious institutions that deny others the right to speak out.
Prager bleats on about “Safe Spaces” at American colleges and universities, mocking young people for being weak and infantile, while at the same time finding his own securely “safe” niche in the comfy cozy Right Wing echo-chamber where dissent is not at all tolerated:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/opinion/trump-human-scum-tweet.html
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has written an excellent defense of the few Republican “heretics” who have had the temerity to criticize Trump.
She notes that even their mild criticism should be admired, given how difficult it is to speak freely in Trumpworld:
In recent days, as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah has staked out a lonely role as Trump’s most prominent Republican critic, many progressives have rolled their eyes. He’s been widely mocked for the once-secret Twitter account he kept under the pseudonym Pierre Delecto, which he used to like anti-Trump tweets that he’d probably never endorse publicly. Democrats, said a recent NBC News report, “tend to dismiss Romney as ineffectual because he has stopped short of calling for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office.”
Former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who gave up his political career to speak out against Trump, was similarly dismissed. Even ex-Republicans who do call for Trump’s impeachment and removal are regularly pilloried on the left.
I agree with progressives who argue that Trump is the apotheosis of the modern Republican Party, not a departure from it. Everyone who helped build that party bears some responsibility for him. But apostate conservatives also deserve admiration for the sacrifices they’re making. It must be painful to have the movement that’s defined your life turn against you.
From the perspective of “Human Scum” like Romney and Flake, the place that Trumptoadies like Prager now occupy represents the Right Wing equivalent of the very “Safe Spaces” on college campuses that he so shrilly decries.
More than this, though the “Safe Space” phenomena reflects an essential weakness and the insufferable elitist privilege of pampered students, the idea that we need to reject hatred and bigotry and promote tolerance and equity in a world that has become prey to lawlessness in the form of racism and intolerance is one that is surely laudable.
Jews once stood on the side of Civil Liberties and Social Justice, as those deeply-held American values helped us integrate into the larger society while maintaining our own religious beliefs and practices.
The tyranny of the Christian majority was seen as a threat to our freedom as Jews and as Americans.
The Separation of Church and State was promised in the Constitution’s First Amendment:
Sephardic Jews take pride in this illustrious history of Religious Liberty, as Moses Seixas of Rhode Island, in his famous letter to George Washington, sought to make certain that such freedom would never be infringed:
https://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter
Now we see how Jews like Prager are allied with Christians like Robison to take that freedom away by imposing the values of Christian Theocracy on the country.
Religious bigotry is now running rampant as Trump gets to appoint Federalist Society judges that will toe the Fundamentalist Christian line:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-secrets-of-leonard-leo-the-man-behind-trumps-supreme-court-pick
For those of us who refuse to toe that hateful religious line, we are all too well aware of what it means to be silenced for our beliefs. More than this, we intimately know how the Radical Trump Right has created its own “Safe Spaces” where we are emphatically not welcome.
Dennis Prager has sold his soul and our Torah in a Faustian pact that has become exemplary of the New Convivencia and of those traitorous Jews who have embraced Trumpworld Fascism and its debased lawlessness.
David Shasha