This movie tells us a great deal about the first 185 years of this country but almost nothing about the last 50.
Most of the argument is guilt by association. President Andrew Jackson, founder of the Democratic Party, seized the lands of American Indians in the 1830's. Democratic President Andrew Johnson returned lands to slave holders after the Civil War. Democratic President Woodrow Wilson segregated government jobs in the 1910's. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt agreed with racist Southern Democratic Congress members to restrict blacks' access to New Deal benefits in the 1930's. (No mention of the fact that he couldn't have passed the New Deal programs at all without support from those Southern Democrats, or that his wife Eleanor was a tireless advocate for blacks.)
But now that the KKK supports Donald Trump, there's no need to mention that in the film. Guilt by association only counts against Democrats.
D'Souza also implies that President Obama is in some sort of alliance with the authoritarian leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin. No mention of the fact that Trump and Putin have expressed admiration for each other.
D'Souza poses as an impartial scholar of American history. Early in the film are obviously fictionalized scenes of him in a short jail term for illegal campaign contributions. In the film, there is a clear implication that D'Souza, as a harmless, scholarly man, doesn't deserve to be locked up with the "rough" characters he was in with. But this presents him with a clever angle for the film. He claims to have had a conversation with gang members in the halfway house who told him the way scams work. You lie to people to sell them life insurance and then murder them to collect on it. A gang member is supposed to have told him that the government is the most successful at scams.
This conversation (which I doubt ever happened) gives D'Souza an opportunity to claim the Democratic Party is one big scam. It's always been about stealing from deserving people to give to undeserving people. It was that in the 1830's when it stole the Indians' lands; in the 1860's, when it took land black farmers had been rightfully given by Republican Abraham Lincoln; in the 1910's, when it took decent jobs from black government workers; and in the 1930's, when African Americans didn't get the same benefits whites got.
But how does D'Souza take the story from there? Obviously blacks and other minorities now mainly support Democrats. How can he make the case that the theft is still going on? He uses two ploys to make the case. The first is to point out that more Republicans voted for civil rights legislation in 1964 than Democrats. This obviously glosses over the facts that Democrats in the South at that time were mainly segregationists and that the Republican Party was a lot more moderate then than it is now. However, 1964 Republican nominee Barry Goldwater opposed civil rights legislation. D'Souza also insinuates, based on no evidence I have seen, that President Lyndon Johnson was a closet racist.
His other ploy is to make a false comparison between the South and the North. First, when blacks moved to the North, they created a "plantation culture." Blacks lived with other blacks and had businesses that mainly catered to other blacks. No mention of the fact that those were the only neighborhoods and businesses they could get.
On the South, D'Souza claims that it didn't become Republican until it became "less racist." As a white person who's lived in the South for 11 years, I know that's false. While certainly not all Republicans in the South are racists, there is still a pattern of reduced opportunity for blacks in the South. For example, Alabama, where I live, is one of the few states that provide no funding for transit, which is disproportionately used by blacks. The attitude of white legislators seems to be "we gave them integration. That's all they have coming." As a result, there are a lot of low-income people forced to buy cars they can't afford.
D'Souza's arguments are the most outrageously hypocritical I have seen.
The film ends by depicting Hillary and Bill Clinton as unsavory characters. Hillary is the only one who's really interested in politics, and it's just for her personal aggrandizement. But she figured out early on that she could use her charismatic husband with an eye for other women to further her career. When women were victimized by Bill, Hillary defended him.
One obvious question: if she's the only one who really cares about politics or public service, how come he ran for president? Now, I have no intention of arguing that the Clintons are without faults. Bill did have a serious problem with women, and it may be true that Hillary didn't recognize their victimization when she should have sometimes. It may be true that the Clinton Foundation isn't always above reproach. But how realistic is it to think that a couple involved in politics and public service for 40 years will never do anything wrong? Bill Clinton's weaknesses may in some ways go along with his strengths: he has awesome social skills, and perhaps when paired with power, that exposed him to temptations others did not face.
Finally, I'd like to pose the question: how good is the alternative D'Souza supports, Donald Trump? The only thing that could possibly make him think Trump is better than Hillary Clinton is believing the nonsense he presents in this film. Too often people delude themselves.
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