This is the fourth movie that Dinesh D’Souza (shown) has made, continuing his theme that the American Left — which he traces through the history of the Democratic Party — has much in common with movements like fascism and national socialism.
Just in case one can’t make that connection, the movie opens with the double suicide of Adolf Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun.
Don’t expect the liberal media to give you an accurate review of this movie. The Washington Post’s scathing review offered little in way of telling readers what the movie was actually about, dismissing it as riddled with historical inaccuracies, without offering much in the way of examples. While D’Souza certainly pushes the historical envelope at times, his motion picture is much closer to the truth than the “review” offered by the Post.
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“It aims to link Democrats to slave owners and segregationists, ignoring the fact that the two parties swapped places on race in the mid-20th century, most decisively with the Democrats’ support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act,” argues the Post. I would agree that it is somewhat unfair to tar modern Democrats with slavery, but the Post answers here with its own myth they dishonestly call a “fact,” that myth being that the parties “swapped places on race.” Their assertion that the Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act, for example, simply ignores the fact — an undeniable historical fact — that a larger percentage of Republicans voted for the law than did Democrats.
Perhaps most devastating for the Democrat myth that all the segregationists became Republicans, the film notes that only two out of dozens of office-holding segregationists in Congress switched to Republican — Albert Watson of the House and Strom Thurmond of the Senate. On the contrary, as documented in the movie, Bill and Hillary Clinton actually praised arch-segregationist and former Klan recruiter Robert C. Byrd upon his death.
The Post review also mentioned that D’Souza interviews Richard Spencer, the notorious white nationalist, in the film, without giving any indication that D’Souza strongly denounced Spencer’s views. Spencer admitted that he is deeply collectivist, arguing that is what is meant to be a conservative, and that he is not opposed to socialism “if done right.” In the movie, D’Souza said that Spencer is “not on the right,” but rather is a “tool” of the liberal media.
But if one only reads the Post’s “review,” the conclusion would be that D’Souza had done a favorable interview with Spencer.
Legitimate criticism of the movie can be made — he has a Confederate battle flag hanging from the front of a southern mansion, before the Civil War, which is ahistorical. He continues his “thing” about demonizing Andrew Jackson, and this time he throws in another 19th century Democrat politician, Martin Van Buren, as apparently one of Lucifer’s agents. No doubt the Democrats of that era had their faults, but so have the Republicans since that time, although one would not know it from watching this movie.
All in all, however, I was pleased with this movie, which fairly makes the case that the American Left shares much in common with the collectivist ideologies of the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis. He documents that Benito Mussolini was a Marxist as a young man, and even edited a socialist newspaper, before concluding that he needed to appeal to Italian nationalism to win power in Italy.
D’Souza performs a valuable service by demonstrating that Franklin D. Roosevelt admired Mussolini, a feeling that was reciprocated (Mussolini, the film chronicles, said that FDR was “one of us”). Roosevelt’s director of the fascist National Recovery Act, Hugh Johnson, openly admired Mussolini. The historical truth is that the New Dealers and the Italian Fascists had something of a mutual admiration society in the early years of the Roosevelt Administration.
Hitler effected a similar merger of national and socialism in Germany. Nazi is simply short for National Socialism (it would be like calling communists “commies”). Hitler had no problem with socialism, but considered the German communists as traitors to Germany, because they had allegiance to Moscow, over their own nation. He employed typical leftist politics, railing against the wealth of the Jews. D’Souza also slays the myth that Hitler was somehow a “Christian,” noting that Hitler’s long-range plan was to exterminate the Christian religion in Germany.
From early 20th century American progressives, Hitler and the Nazis got the idea for eugenics, and he praised Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. After his escape to South America, Hitler’s “angel of death,” the notorious Joseph Mengele, built a new career as an abortionist.
Another service performed by D’Souza in this film is his analysis of Charlottesville “alt-right” organizer, Jason Kessler. Portrayed now by the media as some sort of “conservative,” Kessler was actually a supporter of both Barack Obama and the leftist Occupy movement.
Near the end of the movie, D’Souza’s movie dramatizes the inspiring story of a young German Christian, Sophie Scholl, who was executed by the Nazis. D’Souza used the example of her courageous underground efforts against Hitler as inspiration for Americans today to stand up against the American Left.
Honestly, after his previous movie, Hillary’s America, I expected a dry repeat of thinly disguised Republican Party propaganda. Yes, D’Souza still found nothing negative to say about the Republican Party’s role in moving our nation away from the principle of limited government found in our Constitution. But he expertly used cinema to expose many of the ideological and historical connections between modern American liberals with the progressives, socialists, national socialists, and fascists.
This is a movie worth seeing.
Photo of Dinesh D’Souza: deathofanationmovie.com
