Editing Conservative Liberalism (section)

===[[File:Mesocon.png]] '''Pragerism'''===
[[File:Mesocon flag.svg|thumb|220x220px|Flag of Pragerism]]

'''[[File:Mesocon.png]] Pragerism''' is based on the thoughts of American political figure Dennis Prager. He was born in Brooklyn,New York, [[File:Cball-US.png]] USA on August 2nd, 1948. He was raised in a modern [[File:JewTheo.png]] Orthodox Jewish home by his father Max along with his wife [[File:Mat.png]] Hilda. Prager also has an older brother who is a [[File:Scientocracy_Small.png]] physician named Kenneth Prager. Dennis attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush in which he befriended a rabbi named Joseph Telushkin.

[[File:Mesocon.png]] Dennis Prager went to Brooklyn College, in which he graduated with a major in History along with [[File:PanArab.png]] Middle Eastern Studies; and over the next few years he took courses at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs at [[File:Nyc.png]] New York City along with the University of Leeds at West Yorkshire,England, [[File:Cball-UK.png]] UK. Then he left academia without finishing a graduate degree and he left Modern Orthodoxy but maintained many traditional Jewish practices and remained [[File:Religious.png]] religious. He holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from the Pepperdine University at [[File:LA.png]] Los Angeles, [[File:Cball-California.png]] California.

In 1969, while Dennis Prager was studying in England, UK, he was recruited by a Jewish group to travel to the [[File:Cball-USSR.png]] Soviet Union to interview Jewish people about their life there. When he returned the next year, he was in demand as a speaker on repression of Jews in the Soviet Union. He earned enough from lectures to travel, and visited around sixty countries. After that he became the national spokesman for the "Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry" (SSSJ), and at the start of his career overlapped with a growing tendency among American Jews who had been staunchly [[File:LibZion.png]] Liberal to move toward the center while some to the right that driven in part by the influx of Jews from the Soviet Union.

In 1975, Dennis Prager along with Joseph Telushkin published an introduction to Judaism intended for non-observant Jews called "The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism" which became a bestseller. Among the questions addressed in the text were "How does Judaism differ from [[File:Christy.png]] Christianity, and can one doubt the existence of God and still be a good Jew, and how do you account for unethical but religious Jews?".

On November 2nd, 1976, Dennis Prager supported [[File:JimmyCarter.png]] Jimmy Carter in the 1976 US presidential election. From 1976 to 1983, he ran the [[File:Jewish_Technocracy.png]] Brandeis-Bardin Institute of the American Jewish University (AJU) at Simi Valley while Joseph Telushkin worked with him. He said "It was Prager's first salaried job." Prager soon earned a reputation as a moral critic; attacking [[File:Secular.png]] [[Secularism]] along with [[File:Narcissus.png]] Narcissism, both of which he said were destroying society. Some people called him a Jewish [[File:Natcon.png]] Billy Graham.

In 1982, [[File:Mediacracy.png]] KABC (AM) radio station hired Dennis Prager to host it's Sunday night religious talk show called "Religion On The Line" which got top ratings that eventually led to a weekday talk show. On June 1st, 1983, Prager & Joseph Telushkin published a book called "Why The Jews? The Reason For [[File:Anti-Semitic.png]] Anti-Semitism." According to a review in commentary, the book depicts Anti-Semitism as a sinister form of flattery; as the authors wrote that hatred of Jews arises from resentment over Jews and the acceptance of the doctrine that they are God's chosen people charged with bringing a moral message to the world. The book describes Jews as both a [[File:Zio.png]] nation that has been stateless for a long time, and as being the followers of a religion. It says that this identity is essential to [[File:Judaism_theocracy.png]] Judaism; as the book says that calls for Jews to culturally assimilate as well as opposition to Zionism are both forms of Anti-Semitism. The book describes [[File:JewishAtheism.png]] secular Jews as people who have lost their way, and who generally fall into the error of applying Judaism's mission to reform the world in ways that tend to be [[File:Bundis.png]] leftist, [[File:Totalitarian.png]] totalitarian & [[File:Anjew.png]] destructive. After the book had been published, Prager wrote a syndicated column for newspapers across the country.

In 1985, Dennis Prager launched his own quarterly journal called "Ultimate Issues", which was renamed to "The Prager Perspective" eleven years later. In 1986, he divorced his wife before undergoing a year of therapy, which the Encyclopedia of Judaism says contributed to his book "Happiness is a Serious Problem". In 1990, he wrote an essay called "Judaism, [[File:Gay.png]] Homosexuality and Civilization" that argued against normalizing homosexuality in the Jewish community. It placed sexual sins on a continuum from premarital [[File:Sexocracy.png]] sex, celibacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality & [[File:Incestism.png]] incest. He argued that confining sex to [[File:Straight.png]] heterosexual marriage desexualized religion, which was a great achievement of ancient Jewish [[File:Trad.png]] tradition that was worth fighting to retain. 

Dennis Prager remarried in 1992. According to the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, he was "A fixture on local radio and a Jewish St. George battling the forces of secularity on behalf of simple goodness." While generally [[File:SocialConservative.png]] socially conservative,Prager had some exceptions. He supported a woman's legal access to abortion although he said it was usually immoral, and he supported justified sex between non-married consenting men & women. He became involved with the Stephen S. Wise Temple to give talks there.

In 1993, Dennis Prager starred in a short [[File:Honk.png]] comedy film directed by David Zucker called "For Goodness Sake". The film addressed everyday ethical issues of life. In 1996, Prager along with [[File:Elder.png]] Larry Elder starred in another short comedy film produced by Rich Markey called "For Goodness Sake II". The film pointed out that skill will naturally bring diversity. Even the future co-creators of South Park,Trey Parker & Matt Stone, were involved in this short film.

In 1994, Dennis Prager did an hour each weekday via satellite on a commercial radio station called WABC (AM) which was KABC's sister station in New York. During the 1994-1995 television season,Multimedia Entertainment syndicated a television show featuring Prager. He said he was "ambivalent about television as a medium for deep, intelligent programming but the show was an incredible opportunity to reach a mass audience with my belief system". He moved the studio audience on-stage with him where they could interact with him more directly.

In 1995, Dennis Prager urged [[File:Relzion.png]] conservative Jews to be open to working with conservative Christians like the Christian Coalition lead by Pat Robertson. He named Jacob Petuchowski, Eliezer Berkovits, Harold Kushner, C.S. Lewis, Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak & George Gilder as the people who had influenced his theology the most. Prager criticized the Illinois Supreme Court decision in the "Baby Richard Case", which removed a child from his adoptive parents. While in the KABC he held a "Rally For Baby Richard" which got support from actors Priscilla Presley, Tom Selleck & John McCook.

In 1996, Dennis Prager testified in Congress in favor of a bill called the Defense of Marriage Act. He testified that the acceptance of homosexuality as being equal to heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of western civilization. Prager worked with [[File:RepubUS.png]] Bob Dole's campaign in the 1996 US presidential election. When the polls prior to the election showed that the Dole campaign did not have much Jewish support, Prager said "This was because American Jews are ignorant regarding the [[File:Antizion.png]] Anti-Israel aspects of the current [[File:Demcr.png]] Democratic Party".

In 1999, Dennis Prager hosted a nationally syndicated talk show on the conservative Christian radio station KRLA in Los Angeles. In 2002, Prager was in a documentary film directed by Allen Estrin called "Israel In A Time Of Terror".

In 2006, Dennis Prager criticized [[File:ProgPop.png]] Keith Ellison, the first [[File:Muslim_2.png]] Muslim ever elected to Congress; for announcing that he would use the Quran for the reenactment of his swearing-in ceremony. Prager wrote "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold it's values is concerned; America is interested in only one book, the [[File:Jesus.png]] Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress." In response, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch called for Prager to end his service on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council.

In 2009, Dennis Prager joined other Salem Radio Network hosts to oppose the [[File:Obamium.png]] Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) On June 11th 2009, he along with radio producer and screenwriter [[File:MesoConF.png]] Allen Estrin started a website called Prager University (aka PragerU) which creates five-minute videos on various topics from a conservative perspective.The two who originally created this website considered making it a brick-&-mortar university, but the idea was revised into a digital product to save money and it became a [[File:YouTube.png]] YouTube channel.

On May 4th 2011, Dennis Prager starred in a documentary film directed by Paul Croshaw called "Baseball, Dennis & The  French". It tells the story of a longtime [[File:Lib.png]] liberal activist who; after years of listening to nationally renowned radio personality Dennis Prager, becomes a churchgoing conservative Christian.

In 2014, while same-sex marriage in the United States of America was in the process of being nationally legalized, Dennis Prager wrote "If that were to happen, then there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry." He also said that the heterosexual AIDS crisis was something entirely manufactured by the left.

On April 21st 2016, Joseph McCarthy of The Weather Channel (TWC) pointed out that [[File:AnEn.png]] fossil fuel proponent Alex Epstein promoted misinformation about climate change including false & misleading claims in a PragerU video called "Fossil Fuels: The Greenest Energy". In October 2016, PragerU claimed that YouTube had put 21 of its videos in the restricted mode setting, which ensures content is age appropriate. YouTube responded by saying "We aim to apply the same standards to everyone and we don’t censor anyone. Often it’s not the right approach to say that videos with the same topic should get the same rating. We’ll need to take into consideration what the intent of the video is, what the focus of the video is, what the surrounding metadata of the video explains." Dennis Prager endorsed [[File:Blump.png]] [[Right-Wing Populism|Donald Trump]] in the 2016 US presidential election. He said "Trump was my 17th choice out of 17 candidates" but he clarified that he was now a Trump supporter as there is no choice now but to support [[File:Blump.png]] [[Right-Wing Populism|Trump]] even though he had previously said that [[File:Blump.png]] [[Right-Wing Populism|Trump]] was unfit to be a presidential candidate, let alone president. Conor Friedersdorf of The [[File:Libhawk.png]] Atlantic magazine criticized Prager for endorsing [[File:Blump.png]] [[Right-Wing Populism|Trump]]
In 2017, Dennis Prager was invited to be a guest conductor for the volunteer orchestra of Santa Monica, California as part of a fundraising concert at the [[File:Disney.png]] Walt Disney Concert Hall. Some of the orchestra members protested the invitation for what

they considered promoting bigotry, as the orchestra leader Guido Lamell had invited Prager because he admired him.

In October 2017, PragerU filed a federal lawsuit against YouTube's parent company [[File:Google,_Google_Images.png]] Google, claiming that 37 of its videos were unfairly demonetized or flagged so that they could only be viewed with "restricted mode filtering" which limits views based on viewer characteristics such as age. PragerU claimed that Google's demonetization and flagging violated the [[File:Consti.png]] First Amendment by arguing that YouTube was a public forum. 

PragerU's videos have argued against a $15 minimum wage, against [[File:AntiGRights.png]] increased gun control & in support of [[File:Cap.png]] capitalism. Topical PragerU videos largely avoided mentioning Donald Trump during his presidency.On February 6th, 2017, [[File:Rubin.png]] Dave Rubin starred in a video called "Why I Left The Left", stating that "[[File:Racism.png]] Racism, Bigotry, [[File:Xenophobia.png]] Xenophobia, [[File:Anti-LGBT.png]] Homophobia & [[File:Islamophobia.png]] Islamophobia are meaningless buzzwords." On October 26th, 2017, [[File:AntiLibIcon.png]] [[Authoritarian Conservatism|Michael Knowles]] starred in a video called "What Is the [[File:Altr.png]] Alt-Right?" stating that "The Alt-Right have nothing in common with American conservatism. It is closer to leftism, except that the left is much larger." On December 4th, 2017, [[File:Souza.png]] Dinesh D'Souza starred in a video called "Is [[File:Fash.png]] Fascism Right Or Left?" in which he stated that fascism was a left-wing ideology while he maintained that Italian philosopher [[File:Gentile.png]] Giovanni Gentile; who influenced [[File:Classfash.png]] Italian fascism, was a [[File:Red_Fascism.png]] leftist. Paleoconservative scholar [[File:Gottfried.png]] Paul Gottfried criticized the video as he noted that this contradicted the research by almost all scholars of Gentile's work who view him as an intellectual of the [[File:Natpop.png]] Revolutionary Right.

In 2018, Dennis Prager published a commentary on the [[File:Moses.png]] Book of Exodus. A year later, this was followed by another commentary on the Book of Genesis. Both were published by the Salem Media Group.

During the same year, [[File:Libfem.png]] Buzzfeed News published an article that attributed PragerU's success to the quality of it's production values compared to similar outlets, with its use of popular presenters with established audiences. The article also noted that it had received comparatively little attention from news media analysts due to PragerU's lack of coverage of topical issues such as Donald Trump.

On May 14th, 2018, [[File:Murray.png]] Douglas Murray starred in a video called "The Suicide Of [[File:Cball-EU.png]] Europe", in which he argued that Europe is "committing suicide" by allowing mass immigration. The [[File:SouthernPovertyLawCenter.png]] Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the video as a dog whistle to the extreme right, while Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described it as "filled with anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric". On July 24, 2017, Vanderbilt University professor [[File:Blackcon.png]] Carol Swain starred in a video called "Why Did The [[File:Dixiecrat.png]] Democratic South Become Republican?" The SPLC says that the video contains dog whistles, while history professor Kevin M. Kruse said that the video presented a "distortion of history, cherry-picked its evidence and was an exercise in attacking a straw man".

In 2019, [[File:Gravelism.png]] Mike Gravel, who was a former United States Senator from [[File:Cball-Alaska.png]] Alaska, launched The Gravel Institute; a progressive left-leaning think tank to counteract PragerU. An [[File:Progusa2.png]] American progressive magazine called Mother Jones said "PragerU videos assert that there is no gender pay gap and that there is not discrimination in policing of [[File:AfricanAmerican.png]] African-Americans." On June 13th, 2019, Dennis Prager created another YouTube channel called The Dennis Prager Show.


In August 2019, an article written by Drew Anderson from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) noted PragerU's ties to [[File:Whitesupmega.png]] white supremacy while also noting PragerU's "Horrific Anti-LGBTQ Record". An [[File:USLibertarians.png]] American libertarian monthly magazine called Reason criticized PragerU's claims of being censored by big tech companies for being false as the company's content had not been removed from any social media platforms; and that they indicate a misunderstanding of the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution as protecting a party from any type of censorship, when that law merely protects content from censorship by the government. Several news networks such as Climate Feedback (CF), Reuters & the Weather Channel (TWC) have found that PragerU's videos promote inaccurate misleading claims about climate change. PragerU's coverage of [[File:Covidism-icon.png]] COVID-19 has been criticized for spreading false misleading information about the pandemic. In October 25th 2019, Dennis Prager along with Adam Carolla starred in a documentary film called No Safe Spaces (2019).

As of January 2020, PragerU had about 50 employees at it's headquarters in San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. Marissa Streit is the CEO. PragerU encourages students to join an international student organisation called "PragerFORCE" to promote PragerU's videos with it's chosen ideology. About 6,500 college & high school students promoted its videos as of this year. PragerU is not an academic institution; as it does not hold classes, does not grant certifications or diplomas & is not accredited by any recognized body.

As of May 2020, PragerU releases one video per week on various topics from a conservative viewpoint that, according to its website, advances [[File:ChristZion.png]] Judeo-Christian values. Its YouTube channel includes 968 videos in which each video costs between $25,000 & $30,000 to create. PragerU guests cover a range from the [[File:AthCon.png]] Secular Right, the Far-Right, & the Theocratic Right and some prominent video presenters have included [[File:Shapirocube.png]] [[Neo-Libertarianism|Ben Shapiro]], [[File: CandaceOwens.png]] [[Alt-Lite|Candace Owens]], [[File:TuckerCarlson.png]] [[Paleoconservatism|Tucker Carlson]], [[File:Faragism.png]] [[National Conservatism|Nigel Farage]], [[File:Necon.png]] [[Neoconservatism|Charles Krauthammer]], [[File:Fuente.png]] [[Paleoconservatism|Michelle Malkin]], Bret Stephens & George Will.

In the fall of 2020, PragerU started fundraising for a program targeted towards kindergarten or school-aged children called "PragerU Resources for Educators and Parents" (PREP); and in April 2021 it released its first content. PragerU's school-age targeted content was later branded as "PragerU Kids".