Trump's Biggest ConWeb Fanboy

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah positively drools with admiration over every word that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth -- and even follows the nonreligious Trump's religious lead on not reciting a prayer.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 3/27/2019

Joseph Farah

By contrast, Farah loves President Trump so much that, over the past few months, he's become perhaps the president's biggest, gushiest fanboy on the ConWeb.

In early February, Farah devoted not one but two columns to slobbering over Trump's State of the Union address. In the first column, Farah added random capitalization to quotes from Trump's speech:

• “We have not yet BEGUN TO DREAM,” he said.
• “I am asking you to CHOOSE GREATNESS,” Trump said.
• “There is a new opportunity in American politics, if only we have the courage to seize it,” Trump added. “Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our COUNTRY.”

In the second column, Farah's sycophantic gushing just wouldn't stop:

It was more than words read on a teleprompter.

It was a supreme performance – dignified, positive. It provided America with an alternative view of a potential future.

Let’s just cut to the chase: It was the very best State of the Union in my lifetime – which is nearly 65 years. It may have been the best ever.

He explained that we don’t have to become a socialist nation, setting ourselves up for economic failure and the end of liberty.

He explained that we don’t have to become a nation that takes the lives of its inconvenient and innocent citizens on both ends of life’s age spectrum.

He explained how we need to protect the lives and property of our own citizens by defending our borders and sovereignty.

It was a supreme lesson in what government’s responsibility is to its people – as well as what its limits should be in a free society.

How was it received nationally?

With 76 percent approval and only 24 percent disapproval, according to a CBS poll.

In other words, he did what most Americans would have thought impossible in a time of ferocious division. He united the country.

In fact, Trump did not unite the country; according to the article on that poll to which he linked, "When broken down by party, almost all Republicans, 97 percent, said they approved of Trump’s speech. ... Only 30 percent of Democrats, however, say they approved."

If Farah thinks Trump actually believes any of the things he's saying and isn't merely sucking up to right-wing evangelicals like himself in a cynical attempt to gain their support, he's more deluded than we thought.

Farah spent his Feb. 22 column doing more slobbering, this time over Trump's speech attacking socialism:

Do you know how long it’s been since an American president gave a sweeping, inspirational talk on the oppressive death cult of socialism?

I know for sure it hasn’t been delivered since 1989, when Ronald Reagan left office.

[...]

I heard hope. I heard clarity. I heard courage. And I heard chants of USA! USA! USAI

I heard a new day was coming for Venezuela – and I believe it.

I heard “socialism is dying, and liberty, prosperity and democracy are being reborn” ... and I believe it.

I heard Trump say: “We are profoundly grateful to every dissident, every exile, every political prisoner and everyone who bears witness to the horrors of socialism and communism, and who has bravely spoken out against them.” And I embrace that.

I heard Trump explain just what tyrannical socialism does every time it takes power – “nationalized private industries ... took over private businesses ... engaged in massive wealth confiscation, shut down free markets, suppressed free speech ... set up a relentless propaganda machine, rigged elections, used the government to persecute their political opponents and destroyed the impartial rule of law.” And I said Amen! Preach it, brother!

[...]

I heard enthusiasm and unity and optimism and confidence.

Why haven’t I heard words like that from an American president since 1989?

And then I hear people ask: “Why don’t the young people understand what socialism is really about – death, suffering, oppression, tyranny?”

Maybe they’re simply expressing that they have heard for too long from their college professors and their national “leaders.”

Thank God for Trump!

Speaking of God, Farah's column four days later pushed the idea (as WND has before) that Trump's election was divinely ordained:

A Fox News poll taken just before the second anniversary of President Donald Trump’s January 2017 inauguration showed 25 percent of Americans polled believe God wanted Trump elected.

I know I did.

I know I did some serious praying in 2016.

But I’m not really sure it’s even the right question.

If God had wanted Trump elected, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be so. But God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, the Creator, the One without whom all material things would cease to exist. Nothing happens in the world that God doesn’t at least allow to happen.

[...]

I think many people believe there was something supernatural about the 2016 election because “the world” said it could never happen. All the experts were wrong. How could that be?

It’s times like that you can expect God to act. When it happens, it doesn’t mean we’re entering Eden again. It’s doesn’t mean the Kingdom of God is here. It doesn’t mean Jesus is about to return.

There is only one time you will get to choose the Perfect Leader. That’s when you decide who will be the Lord of your life – and you choose Jesus-Yeshua, the Son of God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.

As WND has before, Farah fails to entertain the possibility that God ordained Trump as a warning instead of a deliverance.

In denial about Trump's racism

Farah ranted in his Jan. 24 column:

Democrats running for president against Donald Trump in 2020 are staking out their campaign theme.

Do you know what it is?

“Trump’s a racist.”

Kamala Harris said it. Bernie Sanders said it. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, took the slur even further, saying, “We have a hater in the White House, a birther in chief, the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The dirty little secret behind these irresponsible and dangerously hyperbolic lies is that all of these people know very well the claims are false, groundless, without any substance.

How do I know that? How can I prove it?

It’s not exactly like Donald Trump was an unknown before running for president in 2016.

He was a major celebrity, one of the most well-known businessmen in the world, a best-selling author, a major donor to Democratic politicians, a media star, the billionaire prince of New York City.

Trump was the toast of the town in New York. He was the toast of Hollywood. He was the toast of the Democratic Party.

In all the years before he ran for president, guess what no one called Trump? A racist.

Why? Because there was no evidence to support such a malicious accusation.

And there is no evidence to support a malicious accusation like that today. And his accusers know it.

How do I know they know it? Because they never provide any evidence. They just make accusations, reckless claims, smears.

[...]

It’s time to demand they all put up or shut up with the racism accusation. Where’s the evidence? It’s un-American to make such a charge against a standing president, inviting, encouraging and inflaming violence against him.

Even by Farah's and WND's standards, this is an exceptionally lazy column. Both of Farah's accusations -- that nobody accused Trump of racism before he ran for president, and that there's no evidence to support current claims of racism -- are easily disproven.

Snopes has a list debunking the former, including racial discrimination in Trump-owned rentals and racial slurs against employees of his casinos. (Which puts the lie to Farah's claim that Trump has "worked with people of all races throughout his career without incident.") And there are numerous lists available substantiating the latter, which you can read for yourself -- many more than Charlottesville, which Farah insists isn't actually proof because Trump "was 100 percent correct" to blame both sides for the violence.

As for Farah's assertion that it's "un-American" to accuse a "standing president" of racism, it's yet another instance in which WND is complaining that people are doing to Trump what it did to the previous White House occupant. WND regularly made that exact same accusation against President Obama:

• A 2014 column by Larry Klayman, for instance, called Obama the "Racist in Chief" and accused him of "insidious racism" because he urged "reflection and understanding" over the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
• WND columnist Kathy Shaidle touted right-wing radio host Michael Savage calling Obama “the most racist president you can imagine,” accusing him of fueling an alleged upsurge in racially-motivated police shootings.
• A 2010 column by Erik Rush was headlined "Barack Obama: Racist in chief" in which he huffed: "The long and short? We’re stuck with a racist president."
• And a 2010 edition of WND's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine was themed "Obama and the New Racism" and declared that racism "is being intentionally created, encouraged and directed by the Obama administration itself."

We don't recall Farah expressing concern that it was "inviting, encouraging and inflaming violence" against Obama by publishing such "Un-American" claims.

A simple Google search would have prevented Farah from embarrassing himself by writing this column. The fact that he wouldn't do even that serves up much more evidence that he has not demonstrated WND deserves to live.

Farah made that even clearer by devoting his Feb. 14 column to pushing the very same (bogus) claim. He went Godwin early, accusing Chelsea Clinton of "engaging in Josef Goebbels’ old Big Lie strategy" by tweeting about Trump's "embrace of white nationalism & anti-Semitic & Islamophobic hate." Let Farah's bogus defense begin:

I grew up in the New York area at the same time Donald Trump was building his real estate empire. He was a famous person, a local celebrity throughout that time. He was a media darling. He was not very political. But he was a star.

It was always clear Trump had an ego, but no one ever called him a racist, an anti-Semite or Islamophobic. Not once.

Later, Trump became an even bigger star through his work on television. In fact, he was now not only the toast of New York, but Hollywood as well. No one ever called him a racist, anti-Semite or Islamophobic. Not once.

Before his bid for the presidency in 2016, Trump was a media darling, a source of all kinds of political speculation; everything the man said was newsworthy – headlines, soundbites. Again, no one ever called him a racist, anti-Semite or Islamophobic. Not once.

Do you know why?

Because he wasn’t. Because there was no evidence to do so. Because he wasn’t perceived as serious political a threat to left.

Again, Farah ignored the various lists enumerating how Trump has been racist even well before running for president.

Farah offers no evidence he actually "searched endlessly through the accusations" and addressed only the accusation he previously attacked. Why not go through each accusation one by one and explain why they're not evidence of racism? Probably because Farah would then have to admit that substantial evidence exists, and picking the easiest one to debunk is the demagogue's lazy way of suggesting that all of the allegations are similarly flimsy.

Farah may or may not be lazy, but he is definitely dishonest. But we knew that about him already, didn't we?

Farah took his Trump fanboyism to new heights in his March 12 column, when he proudly wrote that "I am declaring myself today – no surprise here – for Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020. I do this enthusiastically and without reservation. And I have every confidence he will win. His political instincts are beyond reproach. His courage in doing the right thing incomparable among presidents since Ronald Reagan." And then he declared his desire for the world to end after Trump's second term, as Jesus is apparently the only person who could possibly top Trump as a leader:

Can any other future U.S. president stand up to that kind of satanic opposition? Could any other leader heal the seemingly irreconcilable division in the world?

It seems an impossible mission. With the trends we’re looking at in America and globally, what is it that we need in 2024?

As for me, I’ll take Trump in 2020 and Jesus in 2024.

We need Jesus – not as president but as Messiah, not as suffering servant but this time as Conquering King.

[...]

Jesus’ coming in 2024 is not an eschatological prediction. It’s a hope – in fact the only hope. It’s a prayer. Jesus come quickly, the sooner the better.

That's some serious hero worshipping there -- especially shocking when a evangelical like Farah treats a thrice-married adulterer as a "hero."

Following Trump's lead on prayer

Apparently, not reciting the Apostles' Creed is now the cool thing for Farah and other Trump acolytes at WND to do since the president refused to do so during George H.W. Bush's funeral. Columnist Michael Brown served up a literal "ask me if I care" dismissal regarding Trump's non-recitation, cynically declaring it doesn't matter "as long as he continues to nominate pro-life justices and push back against LGBT extremism."

Farah's Dec. 13 column similarly weighed in by outlining what he considered the problems with the creed, which has been around in one for or another for, oh, a couple thousand years:

• The Gospel of John opens stating that Jesus is the maker all things, including heaven and earth. The creed says the Father. Since they are One, it may not be a contradiction. But, just saying ...
• Did Jesus actually descend into hell? Where do we find this in Scripture? We don’t – so many modern versions of the creed have changed the affirmation to “descended to the dead.” But is this unchallengeable on the basis of Scripture? There are certainly other interpretations of 1 Peter 3:18-20 than the idea that Jesus “descended into hell” or “descended to the dead.” Should this be a doctrine all believers must accept?
• How about the holy Catholic Church? That has fallen out of many versions over the years, sometimes just dropping the capital C in Catholic to a lower case.
• The Communion of Saints raises questions of clarity. For Catholics, this suggests prayers to and with the dead are acceptable. But this contradicts strong biblical prohibitions against necromancy.

Farah then huffed:

I’m not suggesting to you that these were matters being considered by Trump during Bush’s memorial service. Maybe he didn’t have his reading glasses on. Should anyone publicly read a liturgical document simply for the purposes of public show? Did any of these investigators think about asking the president or a member of his communications team why he didn’t recite the creed? Would a lip synch have made them happy?

Well, Farah has been pretty happy so far with Trump's religious lip-syncing given that Trump has displayed zero evidence he believes any of the stuff he's spouting to suck up to evangelicals like Farah.

I’m with Michael Brown on the whole sordid issue. It doesn’t bother me one bit that President Trump didn’t recite the Apostles’ Creed. Nor would it bother me if any other Christian or non-Christian, evangelical or non-evangelical, president or non-president, recited it.

Would it matter to any of Trump’s critics if any other human being on the planet demurred from reading it? You and I both know the answer. So, what are we really talking about here?

We're talking about how evangelicals like Farah sold out moral standards they would have applied (and did apply) to Democratic presidents, simply because they now have a Republican president who sucks up to them. What are you talking about, Joe?

Giving Trump a pass on Kavanaugh

If there has been one constant thread throughout the 20-year existence of WorldNetDaily, it is the near-pathological hatred it has exhibited for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Anger continues to seethe and conspiracy theories continue to be obsessed over by Farah and his crew.

In November 2017, Farah wrote a column attacking Brett Kavanaugh, a lawyer Trump had nominated for a federal judgeship, over his "role in leading the badly flawed investigation into the death of Vincent Foster in July 1993," citing purported "smoking-gun information" from a former investigator, Miguel Rodriguez. (Curiously, Farah never explained what, exactly, Kavanaugh had to do with any of this.) Farah was worried because Kavanaugh was also a possible candidate for a future Supreme Court seat and further fretted: "Does the president really understand who it is he’s considering for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination?"

The next day, Farah's column went after Kenneth Starr, independent counsel in the trumped-up Clinton scandals of the '90s, attacking him for, among other things, hiring Kavanaugh.

When that SCOTUS opening did, in fact, open up, Farah penned a July 2018 column asserting that Kavanaugh "should be removed for consideration – too risky for such a pivotal swing-vote position." Farah rehashed his Vincent Foster conspiracy theory again, adding that "President Trump has shown he believes there was something 'very fishy' about Foster’s death and the ensuing cover-up by the Starr commission." Farah concluded: "There are too many super-qualified candidates for this position who would do a fine job without the specter of a whitewash in the matter of Vincent Foster’s untimely and unexplained death. President Trump’s instincts are right about Foster. He should follow them and look elsewhere for his best pick next week."

Trump did end up nominating Kavanaugh. Curiously, Farah did not devote a single word to Kavanaugh in his column during the entire nomination process, even though it involved contentious hearings featuring controversies surrounding allegations of sexual assault during Kavanaugh's prep school days.

So silent was WND in general over this that even Art Moore's "news" article on Kavanaugh's nomination touted how he "led the investigation into the suicide of Clinton aide Vince Foster" -- but made no reference to his boss' attacks on Kavanaugh over that very thing.

It was not until after Kavanaugh was safely ensconced on the Supreme Court that Farah felt suddenly able to criticize him again.

In a Dec. 10 column hyperbolically headlined "The Kavanaugh betrayal!" Farah ranted that Kavanaugh siding with the majority -- "the high court's leftists" in Farah's description -- in refusing to hear a case focusing on "Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood" meant that "Brett Kavanaugh is a fraud. He should never have been President Trump’s first choice. He’s a weakling. He buckled to the extreme left to salvage his own reputation."

Farah then rehashed his conspiracy theory about Starr and also wrote of Kavanaugh: "I had a bad feeling about this guy – ever since his role in the Vincent Foster cover-up and his tutelage by former independent counsel Kenneth Starr."

Farah didn't explain why he didn't vocalize any of this "bad feeling" during Kavanaugh's nomination process.

Two days later, Farah was back to rant some more about Kavanaugh and Starr, complaining that "Starr appointed Brett Kavanaugh to oversee the Foster investigation. Kavanaugh, with Starr’s approval, covered it up by firing the young prosecutor who raised too many questions."

What Farah is ultimately complaining about, of course, is that Kavanaugh refused to put politics -- specifically, Farah's politics -- before facts or reason. In Farah's mind, Bill and/or Hillary Clinton were ipso facto guilty of causing the death of Vincent Foster, if for no other reason than because Farah hates the Clintons with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Similarly, Farah believes that abortion should be made illegal and doesn't care how that's achieved. He thinks that the ideal Supreme Court justice should put right-wing politics first and then build a legal rationale for them.

By complaining that Kavanaugh not only wouldn't adhere to right-wing orthodoxy on abortion but also that he apparently accepted the judgment of pretty much every legitimate investigator that Foster committed suicide, Farah is inadvertently bolstering the case that, contrary to many liberals' expectations, Kavanaugh might actually be a decent and thoughtful (albeit still conservative-leaning) justice.

Probably not what Farah was intending to do.

This, in a nutshell, is just how meekly deferential Farah has become to Trump -- he refused to jeopardize a Trump nomination despite vehement personal opposition, simply because Trump nominated him.