Although I admire Dennis Prager, I have to vehemently disagree with him on the point he makes in the above paragraph. Throughout my entire 72 years, "liberal" and "liberalism" were the terms many communists and socialists used to hide behind. If Prager means the classical liberalism that grew out of the Enlightenment and which characterized the views of our Founders, then I could agree. But he clearly doesn't mean that.
I don't think there has ever been a period in their history when Democrats and those we today call "the Left" have ever been classical liberals. They have always been one flavor or another of Marxist. Today they are out of the closet probably because the self-avowed Marxist, Barack Obama, won the presidency twice.
Sadly Obama has been successful in transforming America. I dont recognize my country anymore. Beam me up Lord!
Perhaps before FDR the Democrats were as Prager described them in the sentence you quoted. But then there was Wilson, so maybe we have to go back to the 1800s to find non-communist Dems.
It is now indisputable that Obama posted fake documents on the Internet. This was known within minutes of posting. The right did nothing.
Yeah, I agree. I like Prager a lot but he twists himself into pretzels trying to make excuses for liberalism. He is a master of clarity except when it comes to liberalism. It’s like can’t quite decide if he means true classical liberalism or just “nice” leftism. I’d almost guarantee you it’s because he’s had influential people in his life, people who he’s admired, who’ve called themselves liberals and he can’t bear to lump them in with the full bore crazy left. These are probably people who were patriotic and open-minded but who liked things like the New Deal and the Great Society. These may have been truly fine people, but unfortunately they accepted some of the left’s basic premises and, in doing so, helped shift the country’s ideological center of gravity leftward, which in turn gave us the modern left that Prager opposes. Of course I am speculating some here.