In the promotional materials for the new documentary Death of a Nation, conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says the following:
“Not since 1860 have the Democrats so fanatically refused to accept the result of a free election. That year, their target was Lincoln. They smeared him. They went to war to defeat him. In the end, they assassinated him.
Now the target of the Democrats is President Trump and his supporters. The Left calls them racists, white supremacists and fascists. These charges are used to justify driving Trump from office and discrediting the right ‘by any means necessary.’
But which is the party of the slave plantation? Which is the party that invented white supremacy? Which is the party that praised fascist dictators and shaped their genocidal policies and was in turn praised by them?
Moreover, which is the party of racism today? Is fascism now institutionally embodied on the right or on the left?”
These food-for-thought questions are the film’s focus. D’Souza charges that far-left Democrats and progressives are guilty of projection when they call Republicans and conservatives Nazis and fascists. D’Souza contends that, in reality, the Democratic Party platform and progressive policy positions more closely resemble the ideologies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Throughout Death of a Nation, D’Souza draws parallels between the statist policies of the Democratic Party and these totalitarian regimes.
While it’s unfortunate that American political discourse has degenerated into arguments over which party is more oppressive, D’Souza tackles these questions directly. If, as progressive activists contend, Donald Trump is a white supremacist and the incarnation of Hitler, shouldn’t they demonstrate this with carefully-crafted arguments instead of sloganeering and angry name-calling at protest rallies? If, as Antifa and other groups contend, Republicans are the party of violence and racism, why do Antifa’s tactics so closely resemble those of Mussolini’s Blackshirts? Historically, the Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln, the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. How did Republicans transform into the “bad guys” of history in our contemporary era?
D’Souza’s examination of the historical record is the biggest strength of Death of a Nation. In interviews with historians like Allen Guelzo, he discusses Democrat President Andrew Jackson’s involvement in Indian removal and early twentieth-century progressives’ attachment to Eugenics. In addition, D’Souza points out that President Woodrow Wilson used the power of the federal government to re-institutionalize racism. The film also recounts FDR’s appreciation for some of Mussolini’s labor and economic policies.
D’Souza de-bunks the assertion that the Republican Party transformed into the party of white racists during the Nixon era. He dispels the myth that the Democrats exclusively became the virtuous champions of civil rights at that time. He rejects the so-called “southern strategy” explanation that has bolstered this argument for decades. D’Souza points out that only two or three segregationists ever switched parties. The most prominent—George Wallace, for instance—remained Democrats until they died.
Still, D’Souza could have gone further to put this argument to rest and offer additional, nuanced analysis of southern politics in the last forty years. What explains the South’s support of Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election if Nixon enticed all the old southern racists to the Republican side? Should the South’s political preferences only be considered racist when it supports Republicans? How do we account for the South’s split over Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992? What explains Alabama’s rejection of Roy Moore for Senate in 2017? When Democrats glom on to the southern strategy simply to deny their own racist past, they actually affirm what Democratic former Attorney General Eric Holder once said about our never having an “honest conversation” on race.
Death of a Nation highlights German Christian activist, Sophie Scholl, guillotined in 1943 for criticizing Hitler. Often progressives and Marxists denigrate religion as the “opium of the people.” They also argue that Christians have used religion to justify bigotry and slavery. However, Christians also have played a major role in opposing Nazism and American slavery. The American abolitionist movement, for instance, included Quakers, Presbyterians, and other religious sects who considered slavery an abomination.
Predictably, progressive reviews of the film have been negative. They call D’Souza’s positions “ridiculous” and “long discredited,” without demonstrating why or how. His detractors have merely resorted to derision, not serious refutation.
Still, it is not a perfect film. Death of a Nation is sometimes mawkish and over-the-top with patriotic music and scenery. Moreover, the debate over which political party shares more in common with the Nazis isn’t getting us anywhere, but D’Souza’s impulse to counter race-baiting demagoguery is understandable.
The film also glosses over many critical issues. It misses an opportunity to critique the Republican Party’s past failures to appeal to African-American voters. This critique, taken from the comments section of a conservative magazine, is particularly revealing: “I loved the [sic] Death of a Nation, until the last segment. While I was touched by the sacrifice made by the 22yo White Rose anti-Nazi activist, it was a lost opportunity to pat the leaders of the Trump conservative movement on the back and give people useful guidance on how to help.”
As D’Souza has pointed out before, African-Americans made a Faustian bargain with the Democratic Party during FDR’s years in the White House because they believed the New Deal offered them economic opportunities. They’ve remained Democrats because Republicans have never presented them with a viable alternative. Only Donald Trump has been able to make some inroads with black voters because of his support of American blue-collar workers of all races. Still, he has a lot more to do. D’Souza could have articulated a more precise action plan to expand the Trump voter base
Death of a Nation is largely a “preaching to the choir” film. Most conservatives will love it, and perhaps it will rally them to the polls during the mid-terms. Likewise, staunch liberals will hate it. He probably won’t change many minds.
But then again, maybe he will. The evidence coming from Brandon Straka’s #walkaway movement suggests that many liberals are weary of the invective coming from leftists. Many are re-considering Trump.
The time is overdue for the Democratic Party to engage in some soul-searching. It’s time to stop demonizing half the country and look at the party’s limitations to figure out why Democrats lost to someone like Donald Trump. Until leftists abandon the protest lines and reject the facile invective and emotionalism they’ve embraced, they will remain in the political wilderness.
Grade for Death of a Nation: B-/C+
