There are several reasons why the president could be doing this. The denunciations of D'Souza's pardoning have come fast and furious from those on the left - and that frequently seems to be just how Mr Trump likes it.
David Graham of The Atlantic says that Mr Trump has turned the pardon power into an "everyday tool of culture war". While many conservatives were slow to warm to Donald Trump's style of politics, there is a growing segment of the movement that both appreciates the efforts the president is making to advance traditional Republican priorities - on taxes, judicial appointments, religious freedom and deregulation - and his uncanny ability to instigate apoplectic rage from those on the left Trump derangement syndrome, as some have called it.
Anti-Trumpism, for a time, had a life in the conservative sphere. Anti-anti-Trumpism now rules the day. The rationale isn't legal. It is not in spite of but because of D'Souza's racism and aggression. It is as simple as that. Although D'Souza had become somewhat of a persona non grata in more genteel conservative circles, his pardoning has already been celebrated by some on the right. This is Justice.
D'Souza may traffic in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. I guess, to some degree, this has worked — in , Trump gave him a pardon after he pleaded guilty to using straw donors, illegally, to contribute to a Republican Senate candidate in This is not the first time D'Souza has said racist things against Black people.
The Black Lives Matter protests in the last few months have been a good time for all non-Black people to reflect on how we participate in the oppression of Black people. Indians, in particular, have a unique responsibility here — we have privilege not in spite of how Black people are treated around the world, but because of that treatment.
Now, to enforce equal opportunity, the government could do one of two things: it could try to pull my daughter down, or it could work to raise other people's children up.
The first is clearly destructive and immoral, but the second is also unfair. The government is obliged to treat all citizens equally. Why should it work to undo the benefits that my wife and I have labored so hard to provide? Why should it offer more to children whose parents have not taken the trouble?
What's the Matter with Kansas? The Enemy at Home was rejected by much of the conservative movement, not least because of the implication that D'Souza agrees with some Islamist critiques of Western culture. For instance, D'Souza writes , "the political right and the Islamic fundamentalists are on the same wavelength on social issues," and, "Yes I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt.
But when it comes to core beliefs, I'd have to confess that I'm closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap. National Review hosted a symposium on the book that was overwhelmingly negative. Roger Kimball, who had issued a glowing review of Illiberal Education , wrote, "The problem with The Enemy at Home is … well, everything.
Sort of? There's no obvious musical accompaniment to D'Souza's career, but this is better, I promise. D'Souza appeared in an infomercial for his friend Bruce Schooley's invention, the Fliptree: a pre-lit, multi-component artificial Christmas tree designed to be easy to move and store. It's delightful:. Thanks to Elon Green for the pointer. Not positive! He rejects the frequent conservative attack that Obama is a European-style or perhaps Alinskyan socialist at heart, arguing instead that Obama is best understood through the lens of anticolonialism, in particular Kenya's struggle against British imperialism.
Obama was taught by his father, D'Souza argues, to view the US as an imperialist actor trampling upon states both through outright war as in Vietnam or Iraq and through economic exploitation, a natural successor to the more formal role that the British Empire played in much of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
Everything Obama does can be understood in light of these fundamental commitments, D'Souza believes: "Why support oil drilling off the coast of Brazil but not in America? He views some of the Muslims who are fighting against America abroad as resisters of U. As was the case with The Enemy at Home , many conservatives rejected D'Souza's theory as preposterous, noting that there are plenty of other, much more plausible explanations for why the Democratic president has pursued policies roughly in line with the Democratic platform, and that Obama's memoir made it very clear that he, far from wanting to emulate his father's politics, was deeply disappointed in him.
In a particularly pointed piece , The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson identified "misstatements of fact, leaps in logic, and pointlessly elaborate argumentation" throughout the book. For liberals, meanwhile, "Kenyan anticolonialist" became something of a punchline. Matt Steinglass at the Economist decided to turn the tables on D'Souza and concocted a byzantine explanation for D'Souza's conservatism, based upon his family's caste, Catholicism, and position within the Portuguese Indian territory of Goa, that is just as unnecessary as D'Souza's explanation for Obama's liberalism.
James Mann at the New Republic added , for good measure, "anti-colonialism is itself not exactly alien to American traditions; our country was founded on it.
But some important conservatives took D'Souza seriously. That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior. There are two D'Souza scandals, more or less. The newspaper whose inflammatory coverage incited the riot had endorsed Warren Harding for president in and espoused a consistently pro-Republican editorial line. The accused man—Dick Rowland was his name—and the purported victim, Sarah Page, were alone together in a busy office elevator for only a few minutes.
Tulsa police questioned both Rowland and Page the next day. Page declined to press charges. Rowland, who would survive the riot, was never prosecuted for any crime. If not ignorance, then carelessness? Or what? By this I do not mean, what is the psychological disposition of the people who tell such lies, but rather, what do they gain by telling them?
What is the ultimate game plan of the liars? What ugly truths are they trying to camouflage through the lies that they tell? Those are powerful questions, but they redound most powerfully upon the man who wrote them. The psychology of aggrievement joined to racial resentment: Perhaps that is the recipe from which Trumpism has been brewed.
Many of the disputes of the s that excited me as a young conservative have subsided into forgetfulness. Who recalls now that it was once controversial that telephone services should be competitive rather than a regulated monopoly? Meanwhile, what was once universally accepted—American presidents should not try to incarcerate their political opponents—has now become the most hotly contested battleground. We live in a new world, on unfamiliar terrain, amid awkward new political alliances and allegiances.
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