PragerU, the right-wing propaganda conglomerate that creates cutesy 5-minute videos designed to rewrite reality to its liking, continues to grow in popularity and influence. Its oh-so-precious “educational” content has been approved for classroom use in at least three states — and no doubt many more are on the way. (They’ve claimed that Texas also made such a deal, but — surprise– they lied.) Not to mention its appeal to the thriving “Christian” homeschool culture. Dennis Prager has grand ambitions to indoctrinate our children. He freely admits it. He even uses that word.
All of this would be alarming enough if P.U. simply put an extreme right-wing spin on the facts (which it certainly does often enough). But that’s not all; it flat-out lies, and disseminates myths that have been debunked, or repeats talking points and claims that are unsubstantiated, but are packaged as immutable Golden Truth.
The list of P.U.’s lies, both explicit and implicit, is vast. But here are some of the biggest ones so far. Some of these have already been covered in more detail in previous posts, but the number keeps growing. This is probably not a complete collection; but this post may be updated from time to time in the future. So here we go:
Columbus was a swell guy and a great navigator (implicit)
While suggesting that Columbus deserves his place in history, ignoring that he was an inept explorer who blundered his way to success through ruthless egomania and sheer dumb luck, P.U. tries to rehabilitate him and whitewash his atrocities by saying that, goshdarnit, other people were doing the same kind of things; and anyway we shouldn’t judge him by “modern standards”. But what other standards do we have? And his barbarity shocked people in his own time too. While indulging in masturbatory pearl clutching over the supposed threat to children posed by drag queens (see below), Prager also uses a video targeting children to extol the virtues of a brutal ravager who boasted about making sex slaves of children.
Slavery had its good side (implicit)
There are even cartoon incarnations of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass reassuring kiddies that they shouldn’t feel bad about what happened to them (must avoid anything that makes white people feel guilty at all costs, doncha know) because hey, they made out okay in the end; and falsely claiming that the U.S. was one of the first nations to abolish slavery (which presumably would make everything peachy). Oh yes, and Columbus (see above) reminds us that, so what if he enslaved the natives; it’s better to be a slave than dead, so there’s that. If your captors chop off your hands and string them around your neck because you didn’t dig enough gold, just turn the other cheek and offer them your feet too.
America was founded as a Christian nation (implicit)
The dean of this “university” himself is Jewish. But being a true-red right-winger requires drinking the entire barrel of Kool-Aid, no matter how many contortions you have to perform.
The KKK was founded by The Democratic Party (explicit)
Or, as some of the personalities say, the “Democrat Party”. The KKK wasn’t founded by a party at all, but by individuals. And in the beginning, it was rather tongue-in-cheek and harmless. Only later did it morph into a vicious mob terrorizing African-Americans. And attract individuals aligned with both political parties. True, many of its early members were affiliated with (what was then known as) the Democratic Party. But…
The “party switch” didn’t really happen (explicit)
The Democratic Party of yore became more like the Republican Party of yore, and vice versa. But P.U. denies that this well-documented “party switch” actually occurred, focusing on the relatively small number of lawmakers who literally changed their own individual party affiliations — which of course is not the point.
“Republic, not democracy” (explicit)
Yes, they really push this stupid talking point, apparently believing that the two are mutually exclusive.
The GOP Southern Strategy is a “leftist myth” (explicit)
Tell that to those Republicans who have acknowledged, some of them in real time, that their party employed the Southern Strategy. Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips even penned a syndicated column in 1973 boasting about its smashing success.
The Electoral College is more equitable and noble than the popular vote (explicit)
All of the reasons P.U. offers for supporting the Electoral College are not only unfounded, but exactly the opposite of the truth. When people support the E. C., they actually do so precisely because it’s inequitable. It’s a way of helping to maintain “a republic and not a democracy” — which in plain English means minority rule.
Ronald Reagan was a great leader and a visionary (strongly implicit)
If you’re gonna be a bona fide winger, it’s de rigueur that you be a card-carrying member of the Cult of Ron Worship. Which requires totally ignoring (or subscribing to a Bizarro Planet alternate version of) the actual record of The Gipper’s words, actions, and disastrous footprint.
JFK would be a Republican today (very strongly implicit, if not explicit)
Prager’s mission to rewrite history includes not only the apotheosis of right-wing chowderheaded stumblebums like Reagan, but the debasement of Democratic icons like Kennedy — by suggesting that if he were around today he would find a home in today’s Capitol-trashing Pizzagate birtherism GQP. Yes, the Democratic Party has changed since his time. The world has changed too. It’s called progress. Forward movement happens to all living things. (Well, except for conservatives, of course — they move backward, or at least try their best.) And there’s no reason to think that Kennedy would not be equally progressive in today’s world.
The death penalty is beneficial (strongly implicit)
Prager’s argument in favor of capital punishment boils down to “some people deserve to die”. There’s no examination of the many reasons to oppose it, and the absence of a single good reason to support it. (Bonus lie: “And now, with DNA testing and other advanced forensic tools, it is virtually impossible to execute an innocent person.”)
Father knows best (strongly implicit)
P.U. has several “courses” (yes, they actually call them that) purporting to bitch-slap feminism (or rather their straw woman version of feminism), equate concerns about toxic masculinity with an assault on masculinity itself — and even as a nefarious plot to sissify males– and assure women that their true fulfillment as human beings lies in their embrace of “traditional gender roles”. There’s even a video arguing that God must necessarily be — like Dennis Prager himself, whaddaya know– a he. (Cliff’s Notes version: the masses wouldn’t be able to relate to some vague “it” –the way they can , one gathers, to a bearded giant in the sky using the earth as a footstool; and a benevolent deity couldn’t possibly be conceptualized as female because men commit most of the evil in the world. You think I’m joking? And it sounds even dumber in the original Pragerese.) The Prageroids have also made it clear that they’re opposed to reproductive autonomy for women. Oh yes, and Prager himself authored an essay proclaiming that wives should be willing to have sex with their husbands even if they don’t want to.
Immigrants are a threat (strongly implicit)
P.U. even supports finishing Former Guy’s vanity project along the border. And while not endorsing Great Replacement Theory by name, the platform has echoed its tenets very closely, even giving a megaphone to its prominent loudmouthed mouthpiece Tucker Carlson.
Morality is impossible without religion (explicit)
They just can’t seem to put it together that even if we conclude that religion is indeed moral (a big if), we would not be able to make that determination without a preexisting sense of what morality is.
The mainstream media is less trustworthy than the right-wing punditocracy (very strongly implicit)
P.U. has impugned the “legacy media” (the clever pejorative du jour, replacing “lamestream media” for the time being) in several videos, including one that baldly characterizes such media as deliberate “lying liars”. The basis for such claims is twofold. First, there are a handful of high-profile cases, out of gazillions of news stories in the past few years, in which initial media reports were inaccurate. This happens under the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions. Being a journalist is a tough job, and sometimes mistakes are made.
But right-wingers, of course, zero in on those mistakes that cast themselves in a negative light as proof of malignant liberal bias in the media, and totally ignore the many, many, many instances of lazy reporting that carries water for right-wing narratives. And they never mention the persistent and deliberate dishonesty of Fox “News”, which is about as mainstream as it gets — on the contrary, they occasionally sneak in a subtle plug for Fox.
The other prong of P.U.’s attack (which they conflate with the first) is a handful of stories which they claim are false, but which in fact are quite true.(See below.) But hey, not to worry; there’s no need to trust the legacy lying liars for your intel. Just get all of your news from Prager or Newsmax or Breitbart or Infowars. Or memes on Nazi Elon’s site, which Prager has proudly defended. Couldn’t possibly encounter any dishonest or inaccuracy that way, could we?
He didn’t really call Nazis very fine people (explicit)
Except, um, he did. Prager’s gaslighting is founded on the fact that Former Guy also insisted (after a great deal of prodding from handlers, no doubt) that he wasn’t really referring to Nazis when he said there were “very fine people on both sides”. But there were only two “sides” (and even he evidently knew that, saying “both” instead of “all”). One side was white nationalists. That’s Nazis to you and me.
Character is less important than agenda (implicit)
At least a time or two, P.U. has suggested that we should be willing to overlook a politician’s words and deeds, however vile, if we approve of their avowed platform. This was evidently meant to brush aside alarm over the conduct of the Forty-Fifth White House Occupant, the vilest of the vile, and focus instead on the fact that he hates all the right people.
Big Tech censors conservatives (explicit)
No matter how many times they repeat it, and beg for donations to fight it, it’s hard to imagine they really believe this absurd myth after being repeatedly laughed out of court when they tried to cash in on it through judicial skullduggery. And not that they’d be interested in examining any actual data or anything, but there are plenty of numbers showing that social media in fact is heavily skewed rightward. Conservatives whining about “censorship” aren’t really about fighting censorship or fighting for free expression. They’re not even about trying to get special treatment. They’re about trying to get treatment even more special than they already do
Transgenders are sick and misguided (very strongly implicit)
P.U. runs a very heavy battery of sleazy attacks against transgenders, even promoting the bigoted “documentary” What Is a Woman?
Drag queens are a threat to children (strongly implicit)
Pragerists frequently warn about the dangers of exposing children to drag queens, because… well, something or other “grooming” . They forget to mention that drag queens never harm or try to “recruit” children — in sharp contrast to church officials who warn about how evil drag queens and transgenders are; hardly a day goes by without at least one of the latter being busted for pedophilia. And how many times does Prager mention this?
Blue city crime (explicit)
Even though (or because?) the evidence does not support such a conclusion, P.U. joins in the chorus proclaiming that left-wing policies are causing a crime explosion in many of America’s cities.
Climate change is a hoax (very strongly implicit)
Ridiculing and gainsaying climate science is a high priority for P.U. It’s almost as if the organization was funded by fracking billionaires or something. The silly argument here is that warming has occurred many times in the past so hey, why all the “alarmism”. One video even likens resisting such “alarmism” to resisting the holocaust. I solemnly sear I am not kidding.
COVID is a hoax/ vaccines are dangerous/ mask mandates are tyranny (strongly implicit)
After Dennis Prager contracted COVID, he claimed that he deliberately exposed himself to it in order to build up his natural immunity. His “courses” have cast doubt on the efficacy of vaccines and masks, assailed government mandates as unnecessary and authoritarian, and in general downplayed the severity of the pandemic. “Pandemic or panic”? asks one of them.
War on Christmas (implicit)
Prager’s solution to the manufactured and grossly strained “controversy”over holiday greetings is simple: just say “Merry Christmas”. Problem solved. In fact, if you say something more general like “happy holidays” it is you who are being less inclusive and more discriminatory. No, really.
Racism today is practically nonexistent (implicit)
P.U. consistently plays down instances of racial violence and bias, proffering the namby-pamby attitude that golly gee, we’ve all come so far, so surely racism is a thing of the past. And to convey that message, it recruits African-American shills willing to prostitute themselves for a place in the spotlight.
BLM and antifa are violent movements (explicit)
P.U. has repeatedly displayed video clips purporting to depict violent and destructive behavior by someone connected with one of these groups. What they won’t tell you is that a study of thousands of BLM demonstrations around the world revealed that these events were 97 percent peaceful; or that, among the 3 percent that were exceptions, the violence was generally perpetrated by someone not affiliated with these movements — in fact, it was often someone opposed to them.
Voter fraud is a genuine threat (implicit)
P.U. has tirelessly championed voter I.D. laws. The only reason anyone backs such restrictions is they believe (or, more often, claim to believe) that a significant number of people are voting illegally. (The real motive, of course, is generally to try to prevent, um, certain types of people from voting at all.) This “university” has even given a frequent podium to fascist kook (and convicted fraudster) Dinesh D’Souza, who bequeathed the world 2000 Mules, along with several other cringeworthy videos and books promoting breathless conspiracy theories and trying to turn reality on its ear.
Russian collusion was a hoax (explicit)
They issued this haughty declaration after Robert Mueller failed to find what Former Guy called a “smocking gun” — yet made it crystal clear that collusion was still very much a possibility. In fact, the Mueller investigation didn’t even address collusion at all. Then in 2020 a congressional committee headed by REPUBLICANS issued its final report on the matter, which confirmed what had been obvious all along: collusion was indeed very real. Still waiting for a retraction from P.U.
Wokeness something something woke-ity woke (explicit and constant)
Like everyone else in the anti-woke mob, the good folk at P.U. never get around to explaining exactly what “woke” means or how it works its evil. They just know that it is evil, by Jiminy, and they blame it for everything from bad architecture to black mermaids in Disney movies (Everybody knows that real mermaids are white, dammit.) to cartoon characters and dolls that you wouldn’t want to hump. It’s tempting to conclude that people like this jump on the bandwagon out of sheer ignorance — that they don’t have a clue what “woke” really means, and don’t realize that by opposing it, they are declaring their support for racism. But the Pragerites are not ignorant backwater assholes. They’re urbane, educated assholes. So they almost certainly do know better.
As you may have noticed, these are all essentially the same lies and talking points being spread by even the fringiest of the loony fringe — even the likes of Alex Jones. But Dennis Prager and his cohorts do not come across as desk-pounding, barking spider nutballs like Jones. They are slickly packaged as benevolent, avuncular pseudo-intellectuals. Actually, they are packaged as intellectuals, but they are pseudo-intellectuals. This candy wrapper branding makes them even more dangerous than those who, like Jones, wear their hatred and insanity all over their bigoted sleeves. It’s like covering a landmine with daisies.
The Propaganda Professor 
Aren’t most of these things a matter of opinion or established fact? It’s not as if the left isn’t trying to rewrite history. In a traditional sense, they are simply more correct. I find I agree with Prager on most of these points.
No, it isn’t just a matter of opinion. That’s another big lie you’re being fed. Not all facts are readily quantifiable, but that doesn’t make them merely opinions. (I’ve written about opinion in at least three previous posts.) Only two of these are even remotely debatable: the matter of character versus agenda (which are really inextricable) and the presumption that males are superior (which might depend on how you define your parameters). I’ve included them as lies precisely because they ARE debatable (at best), and yet Prager strongly suggests that they are solid fact. And I suppose if we wanted to be really charitable, we could brush off the JFK narrative as merely mild speculation. But it’s speculation based on a deliberate distortion of the facts. In this lighting, that’s pretty much indistinguishable from an outright lie. Can you give me an example of one of these lies or myths you “agree with”, and why? Also, I’d be curious to hear about a case of the left trying to rewrite history.
On the party switch, you might like my Answer over on Quora.
On the “very fine people on both sides” — this one I do have a slight quibble on, because there were in fact more than two sides at the Charlottesville rally. There was the proponents of taking down the Confederate memorials from the State Capitol grounds (which was proper because the Confederacy committed what Article III §3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as [in its first and most serious of the two definitions given therein] and IMHO any seat of government at any level that honors treason is indicating that that government is aligning itself with treason). There were those opposed to that, whether because of white supremacy or some real if misguided belief that the “noble history” of the “Lost Cause” needed to remain intact and on the Capitol grounds.
But infiltrating the latter group was a third group, the “Unite the Right” rally (their name for it) of white supremacist personalities and organizations. Look up their posters for the event. Few do so much as show a Confederate monument or statue or even the Rebel Flag (which, by the way, was never flown by the Confederacy and was invented as a symbol of white supremacy decades after the Civil War by melding together aspects of the designs of at least two Confederate military flags), and fewer still mentioned the Confederacy or the monuments in the text of the flyers. No, their symbology and text were explicitly white supremacist and downright Nazi. They hijacked the cause of the people who were there to rally for defending the monuments for less objectionable reasons.
So there’s a possibility (very slim) that №PO1135809 knew about there being more than the two groups, and was only referring to the non-Neo-Nazi defenders of the monuments. Unlikely in the extreme (especially since, as you pointed out, he did say “both” sides, implying that he thought that there were only the two sides), but admittedly possible.
May I first say something about myself? I am 77. I first started listening critically to right wing talk radio in the 1960’s. My listening goes back to Melvin Munn from the Hunt Brothers’ “Voice of Americanism,” Reverend Carl McIntyre, and other early wingnut radio figures that have been largely forgotten today. My career led to my spending considerable time in cities all over this country, so I have had the opportunity to listen to a great many of the leading talk radio hosts in the last half century.
I first encountered Dennis Prager in the 1980’s, when he was a local talk show host in California, and have paid some degree of attention to him ever since. In my opinion, Prager is the most intellectually dishonest talk show host I have ever heard. Even with the king, Rush Limbaugh, any careful listener could tell that he didn’t believe a lot of what he had to say, but Prager can deliver comments he absolutely knows to be lies with absolute conviction. He is one of the most degraded people I have ever encountered in my life.
I became aware of Prager in the mid-nineties, when I was living in L.A., and it was immediately apparent that he was conservative, of course. But at the time he struck me as one of those rare (nonexistent?) “reasonable conservatives”. Over the years, he’s become nuttier and nuttier — or else I’ve just become more aware of his true sentiments because of his increased public profile.
Thanks for all the info about crime in blue cities. I am planning to write a letter to my local newspaper, pointing out how bogus that claim is and how it is a typical by-product of mistaking causation with correlation.
one thing you fail to mention is the fact that although Pranger U dotes on many absurd assumption about religious doctrines, there are also tens of millions of Church going protestants, catholics, and many others which are not at all as backwards and biased as you imply except Some of the twisted Southern Baptist variety. Thus you are also mistaking Correlation with causation in many religious institutions and suggesting that all of them spread a corrupt amd ubiquitous versions of false superstitious doctrines
I believe that Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and Krishna etc. were spiritually significant people who, in a sense, are divine messengers. But that doesn’t mean that I also think 4 billion years of Earth’s evolution happened in 7 days, that a loving father must plunge a dagger into the heart of his son to prove his obedience to a rather violent and dictatorial God, or, partake in stoning to death my neighbors for gathering firewood on the sabbath, or that, the armies of religious fanatics have the right to rape and enslave the survivors of their “righteous wars,” or that Jesus was all about wanting people who are filthy rich, to earn earn earn earn, so they can employ many minions who would be otherwise remain destitute, or that gay and transgender people are scheming to turn all our children gay, or that history must be denied and distorted to deliver the “right message.”
Several times in my letters of to our opinion pages I have mentioned that faith need not be followed blindly in order to “save one’s soul,” but when I describe communism as an ideal philosophy intended to end abuse at the hands of a dominant upper class, and that, in fact, there has never been a truly communist nation, right wingers only accuse me of hating God, freedom, and of hating America. But what I actually believe is that both Stalin and Mao were horrible people who killed millions in order to keep their grip on power, yet all my detractors can say is that I hate America?
As far as Christianity though, not all of us are required to attend church often, sporadically, or even at all!! As Christ said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” Yes, Christians as well as those who follow other faiths have done many violent and downright evil things, but there are also tens of millions of Catholics and Protestants in America who follow the teachings of Christ and the love he promoted for all of us to hear. No, not every church grants us freedom of mind (only if we later accept the myth that (none of us can think for ourselves) unless we accept all the teachings of our churches. You are absolutely right about the evil that has occured when human beings make up their minds that only they are right, while everyone else is wrong. but I wish you would stop implying that all faiths are built on lies and devoid of real compassion and love. There are many Christians, Buddhists and eastern religions that promote love and compassion towards all–It’s just that some of them insist on being the loudest voices in the room.
Perhaps you don’t beieve that (all religion are full of narrow minded creationist or are merely tools used by right wing propagandists, but I just get the impression that you consider all faith in a divine being as being foolish or based on pure BS.
Faith in God as well as faith in the basic goodness of humanity has also had many positive effects on human civilizaition i.e. the many dedicated employees working for relief agencies like CARE, UNICEF, or FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY, are staffed by dedicated people who, despite the dangers of geting healthy food, medicines, and vaccines to those who desperately need them, and digging fresh water wells, courageously continue to relieve those who are suffering even though sometimes their own lives are put at risk. Sure Atheists and agnostics may also possess the quaities of compassion and empathy without obtaIning them from reigious sources, but sometimes you seem to paint all faiths with one dark brush storke that reduces them all to one corrupt absurd and negative set of fundamental theological beiefs. I posses very little of their bravery, but I do have the ability to see real virtue and courage in others–religious or not.
I agree that Prager U is conservative propaganda dressed up as an educational institution. However, don’t pretend the Left isn’t trying to indoctrinate the next generation just as hard as the Right. I don’t want to live in a country that teaches creationism in schools any more than one that teaches “men” can get pregnant.
There is absolutely no comparison. For one thing, there is some truth to the idea that “men can get pregnant”. But aside from that, it’s not something that is being systematically taught in schools — it’s only something that a school teacher might bring up occasionally. There is no organized, well-funded campaign to make all children believe such things.