by Diane Rufino, June 15, 2018

Dinesh D’Souza’s latest movie is an excellent example of the kind of hogwash that writers and historians can put out there when there is a gross misunderstanding of our country’s history and its leaders.

The bottom line is this:  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS has no place in a society that values intelligence and truth.  WE’VE GOT TO PUT POLICIAL CORRECTNESS AND GOVERNMENT INTEREST ASIDE and  TEACH OUR HISTORY ACCURATELY.

Dinesh D’Souza has a new movie out in theatres. I just learned about this. The movie is titled DEATH OF A NATION (Can We Save America a Second Time). In its advertising, Dinesh uses the movie to make the comparison between Lincoln and Trump – both men elected to be president yet in both cases, the Democrats refused to accept the outcome.

Dinesh explains. “Not that they’re the same people, but that they’ve fallen into the same situation. Not since 1865 have Democrats so dramatically refused to accept the outcome of a presidential election. … The left has been playing these cards against conservatives for a decade. We explore if the fascist-racist tail should be pinned on the Republican elephant or the Democrat donkey.”

OK, first of all, I understand Dinesh’s need to make comparisons between Republicans and Democrats, and to use history to make his point, but in this case, the connection or comparison is a bit flimsy. The country is a far different place than it was when Abraham Lincoln ran. The country was divided along geographical lines – North vs. South.  It was economic pure and simple. In 2016, the divide is along ideological lines – Democrats v. Republicans. Neither party is the same party it was when Lincoln ran. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I can go into detail, and maybe I will at some later time, but the Republican Party was an evil and despicable party. There was nothing redeemable about it, although revisionist history paints them with a noble and compassionate brush.

I also understand the obsession Dinesh has (and I’m happy for his obsession for truth) to explore the roots of America’s racism and its claims of fascism. The left has been playing these cards against conservatives for a decade – maybe more. Anyone who thinks differently from a Democrat or a liberal/progressive is, of course, a racist. Not that anyone even knows what that term means anymore; most obviously it’s the left that doesn’t have a clue. It’s merely a term used to shut down intelligent conversation and to promote perpetual victimhood. And ANTIFA, a violent leftist movement much like the KKK, is a movement that accuses the right of supporting fascism. In his movie, Dinesh makes the case (strongly, as he has done in his prior works) that it has been the Democrats who are responsible for our racist history and who are, in fact, fascists.

The movie, first and foremost, is predicated on the comparison between Lincoln and Trump.

It’s hard to make an analogy between the two figures when both the country is so fundamentally different and when the political parties are so fundamentally different.

But that’s not my big issue with Dinesh’s movie DEATH OF A NATION. The racism and the fascism component is not my issue either.

Judging by its advertising and its poster, Dinesh believes that Abraham Lincoln saved the nation back in 1860.  As Dinesh wrote on Twitter: “Lincoln united his party and saved America from the Democrats for the first time” in the early 1860’s.” He then suggested that this is what Trump’s biggest challenge is and what he must do to “save the nation.”

Lincoln saved America from the Democrats??  Is Dinesh serious??  He writes this as if it were a good thing?  He says this and articulates this point in his movie as if it were a good thing? The Democrats, back then, were the party of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; they were the party of limited government and the party of the inherent “right of the People to alter or to abolish it [government], and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”  The Republicans, on the other hand, were the party of big government, the party of an ambitious government, and the party violently opposed to the right of self-determination. They were the party that believed that despite the Declaration’s assurance that in America, government is always temporary, always tasked primarily to secure the rights of the individual and always subject to happiness and satisfaction of the people, government in fact, has the primary objective to seek its own power and its own security and permanence, even when the people reject it and seek to abolish or alter it.

So, it was a good thing, Dinesh, that Lincoln and the Republicans “saved” the nation from the Democrats?

History is history. It should be taught and studied for what it was and what it is. It should be examined and studied for what it teaches all of us about the particular time period and about the people, the norms, and the views and politics of that era. It should NOT be taught or studied to suit current thought, and it should never be taught to conform to current norms, to a current agenda, or to a progressive agenda.

I am terribly disappointed in Dinesh in characterizing Lincoln as a great American leader and using him as a role model. I’ve read many of his books and I’ve usually been impressed with the research he’s done to support his views, but in this case, he has failed to do his due diligence on Lincoln, on the Civil War, and on our nation’s early history. The Civil War was the single most grievous decision by any US President. The Republican Party was an evil party formed for the sole purpose of destroying the South and subjugating its people through a highly confiscatory tariff scheme. It was not the party formed to abolish slavery. (that decision was merely a war measure, designed to encourage massive slave revolts against the women and children in the South and to discourage Britain and France from entering the war on the side of the Confederacy). The Democrats, on the other hand, merely wanted the federal government to respect the interests of all areas of the country equally, according to the Constitution. [Note, Congressmen from the North (Republicans, in both House and Senate; 7 Southern States had already seceded) passed the original 13th Amendment which would have cemented slavery in the United States; it would have completely prohibited the government from any attempts to abolish it]. If slavery is what the Democrats really wanted, the Southern States would have accepted that amendment and rejoined the Union, but they didn’t. They didn’t even consider the amendment.

This is what I wrote in response to Dinesh on Instagram: “Lincoln didn’t save the nation; he destroyed it. He re-made it, but on the most un-American and anti-revolutionary terms (reference to the principles the colonies fought for in the American Revolution). All the problems we have in the country right now can be traced to the government system that resulted from Lincoln’s purely political decision to instigate the war, his willing rejection of our founding principles, and his absolute incorrect re-characterization of our federal union and our Constitution. Thanks to Lincoln, there are no more effective checks on the power and ambition of the federal government. The government of our Founding Fathers is dead. To say Lincoln saved the Union (“saved America”) by fighting the Civil War is like saying a man saves his marriage by beating his wife. Submission by violence is NOT freedom.”

I have no problem bashing and criticizing the current Democratic Party. They voted to take God out of their platform 3 times at their Convention in 2016, they are violent, they are rude and offensive, they are hypocritical, they are un-American in their views, they work incessantly to undermine our country and are now vocal in their hopes that our country fails (just to be able to blame Republicans), and they are highly antagonistic to our essential freedoms. BUT, I am ever so disappointed in Dinesh D’Souza for enlisting Lincoln in any attempt to elevate the modern-day Republican Party.