CLEVELAND — Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza believes the Democratic Party cannot escape from its historical support for slavery and Jim Crow, and that the party continues that dark legacy in its current policies.
In a video interview with The Daily Caller at the Republican National Convention Tuesday, D’Sousa explained that the purpose of his latest documentary and book, “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party,” was to expose the Democratic Party’s “crimes” throughout history.
“I think that progressive historiography has done a very sneaky job of covering up the crimes of progressivism and the Democratic Party. Many of the worst abuses of American history were done by the Democrats. But in a kind of ingenious scheme, what the left has done is taken the crimes of the Democratic Party and blamed them on the South, blamed them on the Republican Party, blamed them on America. ‘America did this and America did that.’ No. America didn’t do it, you did,” he told The Daily Caller.
As an example of the alleged crimes of Democrats alone, D’Souza points to slavery.
“You take the debate about slavery. If you read textbooks today and you listen to people talk, you get the idea that slavery was a fight between the North and the South,” he explained. “But most Southerners didn’t own slaves. Most people who fought on the confederate side did not own slaves. The Northern Democrats protected slavery, as did the Southern Democrats. So the real slavery debate, prior to the Civil War, was between the anti-slavery Republican Party and the pro-slavery Democratic Party.”
The filmmaker told TheDC that these points are not known among the general population, especially by those who typically vote Democratic. But he thinks that communicating those points to a larger audience — as he hopes to do with his new movie — will convince average people to think twice about their political affiliation.
“The ordinary guy, and the ordinary black guy, thinks the Democratic Party is the party that fought slavery, the Democratic Party secured civil rights and human rights and basic rights,” D’Souza said. “So if you were to tell the ordinary black guy: ‘Hey listen. Which is the party of slavery? The Democrats. Which is the party of segregation? The Democrats. Which is the party of the Ku Klux Klan? The Democrats. Which is the party of lynching? The Democrats.’ Most people don’t know that. And, so, it is eye opening for them and it makes them begin to rethink their assumption. So that’s what we’re trying to do with this film.”
To critics who say that that’s the distant past and the political parties are completely different from their 19th century selves, D’Souza says Democrats still operate on a “plantation” model.
“If you walk today through Oakland, Detroit, inner city Chicago, even inner city Dallas. What do you see? You see the same thing. Ram-shackled dwellings, the family structure all broken down, illegitimacy is a normal condition of life. People get a meager living. They get free healthcare and they might get food stamps, but no hope, no opportunity. Even though America has spent trillions of dollars on the inner cities, they’re pretty much the same as they were in 1965. So, the plantation, the old, rural plantation has now been transplanted into an urban plantation. And the same Democratic Party that ran the old plantations is running the new ones,” D’Souza argued.
The commentator believes Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of this Democratic hypocrisy, as he insists her career has been tainted with “gangsterism” and a pay-for-play mentality.
“Hillary tries to redeem herself by saying ‘well yeah, but you know, I stand for the party that supports women’s rights.’ So the moral capital of the Democratic Party comes from the idea that it’s the party of emancipation and social justice. So our film, by blowing the lid on this, we strip away the moral claim of the Democratic Party,” he said.