As the rather mix 'n match title implies, Hillary's America: The Secret History Of The Democratic Party, is really two separate films rolled into one. And with the lion's share topically reserved for the latter assertion, while the former regarding the current presidential candidate feels tacked on, hasty and scattered. And actually, a rather redundant indictment of Hillary that has received a far more in-depth examination and incriminating revelations lately, by experts and civilian journalists alike online.
Which positions filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and this followup to his 2012 critique Obama's America, in the rather ironic ideological space of concurring with those he aligns himself with (the Republicans on the right), but also at the other end of the political spectrum, the left who've embraced Bernie Sanders or the Green Party's Jill Stein. A peculiar place indeed for D'Souza to find himself, and only further reinforced by imploring conclusively that Americans therefore needs to vote Republican in this presidential election - without actually saying why.
So what is ultimately presented, is the unfortunately all too common one side to ever story reporting, delineating the historical sins of the Democratic Party while whitewashing the Republicans across the centuries - primarily through that other sin, of omission. And no, Inaccuracy Alert, Lincoln was not against slavery for quite some time ["If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it,” Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley in 1862], while viewing the black population as inferior to whites [“I am in favour of the race to which I belong having the superior position...Free them [slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot, then, make them equals.”] And in fact, Lincoln and the early capitalist North settling on anti-slavery as a war tactic, primarily to break the competitive economic back of the rebel South.
At the same time, D'Souza appears to tiptoe around the biggest Hillary elephant in the room - seeming ironically on the same side with her about this biggest of her current crimes most substantially outed in Wikileaks revelations - namely her covert collusion in rigging the Democratic presidential primaries in league with the DNC and corporate bought big media - and seemingly D'Souza carefully avoiding any defense or support for the victim on the left of those very questionable primary 'victories' - Bernie Sanders. Ideological Walking On Eggshells Alert. And, a potential backfiring of just what D'Souza is intending to do here - namely draw audiences into voting Republican, but potentially sending them off in droves to Jill Stein and the Green Party.
Political ironies aside here, D'Souza may come out of this with the appearance of being his own worst enemy. That is, regarding the extended sequences in the film where he seethes in jail about being railroaded there by Obama and the Democrats, following a campaign contribution conviction. A directorial state of mind which can readily be interpreted as subjectively motivated retaliation as - opposed to a measured critique.
And with such determined scrutiny, why in contrast is there a glaring omission of the historical crimes of the Republican Party. And actually, both parties behind the profit crazed ,genocidal military industrial complex mass murder of millions across the planet, under the superpower guise of US exceptionalism. While in fact at the same time, the modern history of presidents from both parties is ironically inconsequential. As those presidents function merely as the greased palms middlemen and the face of the secret permanent government behind the scenes - the banks and corporations.
Then there are several other assorted elephants in the room that inevitably comes to mind here, with the evidently elaborate and expensive production values lavished on this documentary, and that receives no explanation not to mention disclaimers in the closing credits - Who funded your movie. And, if you're an apparently proudly guilty as charged advocate for the contemporary Republican Party, will you be following up with a professionally impartial sequel about that equally abhorrent entity - both of which have driven most voters this round to seek out candidates outside the political establishment?
That question may have already been answered in D'Souza's abrupt and swift sign-off at the end of his documentary - You know, just go vote Republican. Period.
Prairie Miller
WBAI Radio
