"Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party" | Eastern North Carolina Now

    
Dinesh's Best Documentary to Date - Diane Rufino


If you haven't seen Dinesh D'Souza's latest documentary - "HILLARY'S AMERICA: The Secret History of the Democratic Party" - you won't want to miss it!! D'Souza hits a home-run!!

MOVIE REVIEW, by Michael Clark



    If you haven't seen Dinesh D'Souza's latest documentary - "HILLARY'S AMERICA: The Secret History of the Democratic Party" - you won't want to miss it!! D'Souza hits a home-run!!

    This new film from co-writer/co-directors Dinesh D'Souza and Bruce Schooley has already infuriated virtually every Democrat and the mostly left-leaning entertainment media; 27 of the 28 reviews currently on rottentomatoes.com are strongly negative. These leftist critics hate its mere existence but very few of them are challenging its historical accuracy. The truth hurts and they are in excruciating pain.

    Both D'Souza's supporters and enemies have labeled him the conservative Michael Moore, which is technically accurate as both make politically charged, often divisive documentaries. But that's where any comparison ends. Moore is a bellicose limelight hog who often twists the facts to fit his skewed narrative ("Fahrenheit 9/11" in particular) where as D'Souza cherry picks them. Leaving points out for the sake of running time may not be altogether fair, but least it's honest and far better than trying to rewrite history.

    "Hillary's America" opens with D'Souza being found guilty and sentenced to jail for a crime (if you can call it that) that is rarely prosecuted: he gave a friend money to donate to a political candidate. The fact that this happened shortly after D'Souza made the scathing 2012 movie "2016: Obama's America" led some to believe this was a highly suspect bit of selective enforcement and sour-grapes hierarchy payback.

    The first act shows D'Souza serving his time and conversing with other inmates who are there for far more serious, mostly violent crimes. One such individual is there after pulling off a simple yet highly effective confidence scam involving fake life insurance policies. It is during this segment that the filmmakers begin to draw parallels between urban street crimes and "legal" U.S. political practices.

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    It's worth mentioning that this and a great majority of the rest of the movie is presented as a "docudrama" - actual events re-enacted in a live-action format. There's nothing at all wrong with docudramas and, for people who find the often staid and stiff traditional documentary format crushingly boring, it's actually preferred.

    The latter half of the movie's title is represented in bullet-point detail in the second act and will impress, enlighten and/or confound even those who consider themselves historically astute. The birth of the Democratic Party began with the election of Andrew Jackson as the seventh president of the United States. A merciless slave owner, Jackson was staunchly opposed to abolition of any kind and did his level best to prohibit opinion and anti-slavery tracts from the North getting to the South. Jackson's loose wheeling and dealing with legislature ultimately achieved nothing beyond stalling and staving off the inevitable.

    The remainder of the second half explores the history of the party as it related to three key points in the nation's history: the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, the Chicago-based organized crime reign of the 1920s and the all-important Voting Rights Act of 1964. There's not enough room in this column to go into further detail of this segment of the movie, and even if there were it would likely spoil the bevy of factoid twists and jaw-dropping surprises the filmmakers dollop out along the way.

    Showing up as bridge as it were between the middle and final acts is Saul Alinsky, a Chicago-born activist, author of the "landmark" book "Rules for Radicals" and the acknowledged founder of the far-left leaning "community organizing" movement. As depicted in the film, a young Alinsky devised a not-so-original method of carrying out what in modern terms is commonly referred to as "skipping the bill," or more simply walking out on a restaurant check. He figured out a way to eat for next to nothing by effectively stealing food from a local chain of cafeterias, citing his "right to eat." Huh? WTF?

    While researching her senior thesis on him at Wellesley College in 1968, Hillary Rodham interviewed Alinsky while keeping him at arm's length. Although not mentioned in the film, Alinsky offered Rodham a job in 1971, which she declined, likely because she was at Yale studying law at the time. It was at Yale where Rodham met fellow student Bill Clinton, and they soon began dating.

    If there is anything to find fault with in this particular segment, it would be the slight conjecture of Rodham's initial, implied motives for dating Clinton, although this premise certainly holds a lot of water when applying it to her vehement reactions and intractable defenses of him during multiple accusations of sexual misconduct long before, shortly up to and during his presidency.

    The narrative wouldn't be complete without some kind of inclusion of the current American president, and the filmmakers do so in a somewhat rushed, semi-forced manner. It's not a deal-killer by any stretch, but they could have taken this precious time to focus on Hillary Clinton's tumultuous tenure as Secretary of State and the scandal-riddled leadup to her presidential coronation - er, nomination.

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    Although some may disagree, the Indian-born D'Souza is an American original if not patriot. Unafraid of being one of the rare conservatives operating within the creative arena, he's actually served time for his art. How many of his progressive contemporaries can make that same claim?

    D'Souza ends the documentary/docudrama with these words: "I can't vote, because of my sentence, but you can."

    And that's the bottom line. It is highly improbably that many committed Democrats will see this movie. For the sake of personal agendas, they will abandon the health of their country and take the moral low-road. But those who see this movie MUST share its message and help make sure that on Election Day, everyone who fears for a Clinton administration (ie, a continuation of the Obama years), GETS OUT and CASTS A VOTE.


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