D’Souza Exposes Progressive Agenda

I appreciate all the Democrats who read this column and provide feedback.  I respect our differences and always look to finding common ground.  This week, I am reviewing the three films produced and narrated by Dinesh D’Souza dealing with the “progressive” movement.
The original progressive movement spanned the late 19th Century and early 20th Century.  Some of its key principles were expanding the powers of the federal government, demonizing the wealthy and heavily regulating business and industry.
I oppose the progressive agenda.  I believe in the constitutional view of enumerated federal powers, governing at the most local level possible, and allowing the free-market system to put prosperity within the reach of everyone.  My views are not embraced by many in today’s Republican Party.
Dinesh D’Souza is an immigrant from India who came to America in 1979 on a Rotary International scholarship to Ivy League Dartmouth College.  India operates under a caste system in which you can never leave the status under which you were born.
D’Souza came of age during America’s 1980 Presidential election between President Jimmy Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan.  He was inspired by Reagan’s message of upward mobility and American Exceptionalism.  He went on to work in the Reagan Administration after graduating from Dartmouth and later became an American citizen.
The latest D’Souza movie, Hillary’s America, recently finished a successful run at Citadel Mall Cinemas.  His other movies were 2016: Obama’s America (released in 2012) and the 2014 film America: Imagine the World Without Her.   He paid a personal price for his commentary – he was prosecuted by the Justice Department for contributing too much money to U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long and was sentenced by a federal judge to eight months in a confinement center.
While I don’t agree with several things in the D’Souza films, I appreciate his exposure of the progressive worldview.  I wish he had noted that Republican Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft were progressives.  Roosevelt promoted class warfare, going after the “robber barons” who built successful businesses, regulated railroad fees, and expanded federal land ownership.  Taft  promoted the passage of the 16th Amendment to impose a federal income tax.
In Hillary’s America, D’Souza points to President Andrew Jackson as the father of the Democrats.  Jackson, who was born along the North Carolina/South Carolina border (still in dispute), was the first President to use the U.S. Army to push Native Americans out of their territories and encourage poor whites to displace them.  He expanded his Tennessee plantation through such military actions.
The Republican Par ty was founded in 1854 primarily to prevent the expansion of slavery to the Western states and to eventually abolish slavery.  Republican states in the upper Midwest rebelled against the Fugitive Slave Act, which required state and local governments to return runaway slaves to their previous owners.  D’Souza noted that Northern Democrats, called Copperheads, defended the institution of slavery.
The 13th Amendment  emancipated slaves within the slave states.  The 14th Amendment conferred full rights of citizenship upon freed slaves.  The 15th Amendment stated that voting rights could not be denied to U.S. citizens.  Each of these amendments was overwhelming (or unanimously) supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats.
State and local opposition by Democrats in many Southern states prevented the equal rights called for in our Constitution.  That led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, once again supported by most Republicans and opposed by most Democrats.  President Lyndon Johnson even told Sen. Richard Russell (D-GA), “We’ve got to give them (black citizens) a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”
Another element of the progressive  movement was the foundation of Planned Parenthood by Democrat Margaret Sanger.  She supported the “eugenics” movement to reduce the population of blacks through abortion.  She wrote in The Pivot of Civilization, “We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly-spawned class of human beings who should never have been born at all.”
Whether you are Republican, Democrat or Independent, I hope you will join me in rejecting racism and embracing respect for life.  I also hope you agree with me that the federal government has exceeded its constitutional authority.
John Steinberger is the former chairman of the Charleston County Republican Party, a leading Fair Tax advocate, and a West Ashley resident. He can be reached at John.steinberger@scfairtax.org.