After Donald Trump had nailed down the Republican nomination Dennis Prager (who says he will vote for Trump “because there is no choice”) published “The Scariest Reason Trump Won.”
Reflecting on the fact that Trump meets none of the current definitions of conservative — whether neo- paleo- or social — Prager posed the obvious question: Why are the majority of Republican voters not conservative? While not dismissing any of the conventional explanations for the rise of Trump — the frustrations of white working-class Americans revulsion against political correctness the vast free media attention focused on Trump etc. — Prager offered what he called the scariest reason of all: “Most Americans no longer know what America stands for.”
Prager did not dwell on the link between that ignorance and Trump’s popularity. Had he done so he might have pointed to Trump’s authoritarianism his apparent belief — shared with President Obama — that presidents enjoy unrestrained power and may rule by executive decree and secret agreements when Congress is not sufficiently compliant or his threat to gut the First Amendment to make it easier for him to sue people who say unkind things about him.
The problem identified by Prager threatens the United States in a way it would not affect other countries. Most countries are bonded by ties of blood land and history. Not so America. It is the only country based on a common creed: the Constitution (and some would argue the Declaration of Independence).
