EXCERPT: Dinesh D'Souza's The Big Lie

Editor's note: This following is an excerpt from "The Big Lie," Dinesh D'Souza's latest book, released today.

Racism and xenophobia: this is the hot-button charge. Every comparison between Trump and the Nazis goes here. Elizabeth Warren explains Trump’s rise as the product of “an ugly stew of racism.” Historian James Whitman warns that “white nationalism lives in the White House.” Jeet Heer charges in the New Republic that Trump’s “racism and xenophobia” display his “fascist roots” that are not his alone but “lie in the Republican Party.” Along the same lines, leftist writer Michael Tomasky traces a “direct and indisputable” line from “racist and xenophobic movements” to “Trump’s GOP,” concluding, “They’re supporting Trump as white people because they feel he will protect their white privilege.”

Yet the evidence for Trump’s racism and xenophobia is sorely lacking. Perhaps the strongest basis for the charge is that the Left has uncovered some white supremacists and anti-Semites who say they back Trump. One of them, Richard Spencer, held a notorious rally during which he and his few dozen supporters cried out, “Hail Trump.” Spencer seems here to be doing his best Hitler imitation. Yet if these racists and anti-Semites endorse Trump, Trump himself doesn’t endorse them. The best the Left can show is that Trump has retweeted some statements by white nationalists even though the statements themselves are benign. I retweet people all the time without knowing much about them. The conventions of social media do not require that we check out the backgrounds of the people that we retweet.

Over the course of American history many racists voted for Lincoln—who actively courted the anti-immigrant, Know-Nothing vote— and Wilson and FDR, who actively sought the votes of avowed racists. It doesn’t follow that Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR were racists. As I’ve shown in my previous work, Lincoln clearly wasn’t a racist. Later in this book I’ll prove independently that Wilson was a racist and FDR was in bed with the worst racists in America. My point here is simply that the racist vote by itself doesn’t make its beneficiary a racist.

Obviously, the question still remains: why do these guys like Trump if Trump isn’t a racist like them? One possible answer is that these are jobless guys, losers in society, some of them total imbeciles. Whatever they call themselves—fascists or something else—frankly I don’t believe they are fascists or know much about fascism. Hitler would have sent most of them straight to the gas chambers. (Let’s recall that one of the earliest categories of people Hitler euthanized were the so-called “imbeciles.”) It’s quite possible that these guys voted for Trump because they expect him to bring back unskilled jobs. So even if Trump is not a racist, it’s still possible that racists would like him for reasons that have nothing to do with racism.

Is Trump a racist and xenophobe because he “hates immigrants” and once called a Hispanic federal judge a “Mexican”? Yes, I know the judge in question is a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent. I’m a U.S. citizen of Asian and Indian descent, so that would be like calling me an “Asian Indian.” If someone intends to insult me by calling me that, I’m not offended; what’s the big deal? Even for those who are thin-skinned, Trump was at worst being somewhat insensitive. Insensitivity is not the same thing as bigotry.

Trump’s statements about Muslims cannot be termed racist for the simple reason that Islam is a religion, not a race. Can they, however, be termed xenophobic or anti-Muslim? Certainly the Muslims themselves don’t seem to think so. In May 2017, Trump visited Saudi Arabia, the most devout Muslim country in the world, and he received a hero’s welcome. Trump’s reception in the region contrasts sharply with the reception Obama received. Despite Obama’s craven kowtowing to Islam, he was routinely treated with contempt and suspicion by America’s Muslim allies in the region.

Let’s consider Trump’s executive order banning travel to America from several Muslim-majority countries. These countries happen to be breeding grounds for terrorists. They are also countries where the vetting of people, some of whom have been displaced from their homes and communities, is especially difficult. John Locke says that whatever other tasks a government undertakes—whether humanitarian or otherwise— its primary duty is to protect its own citizens from foreign and domestic thugs. That isn’t fascism; it’s classical liberalism.

Similarly, classical liberalism holds that a liberal society is a social compact among citizens who agree to come together for certain benefits and protections that they seek in common. In exchange for these protections and privileges, they give up the exercise of some of their natural rights. The point here is that natural rights belong to everyone, but civil and constitutional rights are the product of a social compact. It follows, therefore, that civil rights belong only to citizens. Aliens who are not part of the American social compact don’t have any constitutional rights. Again, Trump’s denial that illegal aliens have a constitutional right to be here is in the mainstream of the liberal tradition.

Trump isn’t against “immigrants” for the simple reason that illegal aliens are not immigrants. Leftists in Congress and the media routinely conflate legal and illegal immigrants as in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s comical rant, “We are all immigrants,” and in this New York Times front-page headline: “More Immigrants Face Deportation Under New Rules.” According to this leftist narrative, my wife Debbie (an immigrant from Venezuela) and I (an immigrant from India) should be living in fear. But this is a lie, and Cuomo and the editors of the New York Times know it. Trump has no intention to send us packing to our countries of origin. Trump’s distinction is between legal immigrants and lawbreakers who seek to circumvent the immigration process.

This is not a racial distinction. Trump has never said that America is a white man’s country or that brown or black people should not emigrate here. Most immigrants today come from Asia, Africa, and South America, and Trump seems fine with that. Contrast Trump’s position with that of Hitler. The Jews of Germany were legal immigrants or descended from legal immigrants. They were German citizens. Yet Hitler did not consider them to be true Germans. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship. So for Hitler the line was not between legal and illegal immigrants. It was not even between immigrants and native-born Germans. Rather, it was a racial line between Nordics or Aryan Germanic people on the one hand, and Jews and other non-Aryan “inferiors” on the other.

The lie is even bigger than this. I asked my 20 year old daughter if she knew the history of Arlington Cemetery. Not knowing I explained that it was Robert E. Lee’s land. She had no idea who Robert E. Lee was. Thinking this was about the south. Maybe statues were not the only thing being brought down. But then I asked here if she knew who Ulysses S. Grant was. She thought he was a President. Asking more, she did not know anything about him. I was shocked. She got a 30 on her ACTs went to a very high level High School, took all honors and got into an expensive east coast college. But she said she never took US History.

I thought it was required. And it is. But now you don’t take history. You take victimhood. You learn to identify Sexism and Racism and Homophobic behavior. In fact, there is a sign in front of the public school that says, Muslims, women, LGBT, Africans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, immigrants welcome here. Of course White male American Christians are not welcome I guess. Some how they can’t seem to identify the racism and sexism in that.

Anyway the point is that your kids don’t get history anymore. They get “white men are bad” classes. So the lie is deep down in the system.

“She got a 30 on her ACTs went to a very high level High School, took all honors and got into an expensive east coast college. But she said she never took US History.”

When my stepson started HS I set up program education for him, college prep. Unfortunately I did not follow up until the middle of his junior year finding out he basically ignored what I set (his mom and dad did not monitor even though they agreed).

When I found out he changed things I was able to get him back onto a college prep agenda, unfortunately he was already warped by then.

He did finally get a degree in Business (after I told him if he wanted a to get both a drama major and minor he needed to pay for it, not me).

In the mean time I went to Iraq and Afghanistan 4 times and did not provide the provide the proper influence. He is a classic lib that attacks and assumes he knows what I think. For example he tried to attack me for supporting Cruz because he was born in Canada and therefore not Natural Born. He was surprised when I actually agreed with him saying that both Obama and Cruz have the same issue, they were dual citizens and therefore did not meet the natural born Presidential requirement IMHO.

Blaming the US for the problems of the world is the lazy man’s solution to solving problems...especially when you consider that they’re trying to bust our hump for things the whole world did and STILL does, and worse than the US ever did

Like all ‘lazy solutions’ it just kicks the can down the road and the problems remain. In the end nothing is resolved and once bashing the US is no longer fashionable, we remain, TOO. Then these same whiners will be standing there with their hand out asking the US for all and sundry just as if they never mocked or defamed us.

The US does WAY too much RIGHT that matters, to take this kind of gratuitous bashing!

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Anyway the point is that your kids don’t get history anymore. They get “white men are bad” classes. So the lie is deep down in the system.
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They didn’t get history ‘THEN’ too. The were, are and continue to be: INDOCTRINATED.

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I was shocked. She got a 30 on her ACTs went to a very high level High School, took all honors and got into an expensive east coast college. But she said she never took US History.
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Now you get to see what ‘quality’ of education the GOVT provided on your dime. SAT/ACT/’Honors’ not even worth the paper they’re printed on. But, ‘shocked’? One only need open the ‘textbooks’ to any random page to see the drivel programed into their heads.

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