A Teachable Moment: Dinesh D’Souza Refuses to Take Back False Claim about Republicans Owning Slaves in 1860 (UPDATED)

(UPDATE – 6/11/19) – See below the post for an update.

For Dinesh D’Souza watchers, this headline is as shocking as proclaiming that water is wet. I post this incident because it is a clear and convincing demonstration that D’Souza shows zero interest in academic integrity.  Let me lay out the basics. First, D’Souza claimed in a speech that no Republican owned slaves in 1860. Here is the speech:

He said one Republican who owned a slave in 1860 would require him to take back his claim.

Historians on Twitter, led by Princeton’s Kevin Kruse, quickly rose to the occasion and found ten. Follow the thread below for the receipts.

To go directly to the thread with the breakdown of the ten found thus far, click here.

In essence, the method of finding Republican slave owners involves an examination of those who attended the Republican convention as delegates and then comparing that list with registries of slave owners.

For his part, D’Souza said the instances offered by the historians are “invalid” and he repeated his claim this morning.

I looked for counter evidence in D’Souza’s threads and nothing shows up. D’Souza said no Republican owned slaves in 1860, but in fact at least ten Republicans are on record as being slave owners during that year. It doesn’t change the fact that the Republican party generally opposed the expansion of slavery but it does prove that D’Souza’s specific claim is false. His handling of the matter also shows that he cannot be trusted in a dispute like this (as if there was any doubt).

This incident is a case study in cognitive dissonance for D’Souza followers. Will they believe their senses or go along with their loyalty to D’Souza? There is a solid research base in social psychology which suggests his followers will find some way to ease the dissonance and stick with D’Souza. Most will never know about it because they won’t read any of the historians’ posts. Some will simply assume the historians can’t be right because they are “libs.” Those who do engage with the material will have the most trouble. They will hang on D’Souza’s denials and assertions. A few may file this away as a “rare” mistake on D’Souza’s part so they can hold on to other things about him they like. A very few may actually reconsider his integrity.

Where this challenges to D’Souza eventually may have some benefit is to cause venues like Christian colleges and other organizations who might consider having him in to speak to reconsider. I use instances like this one in my classes as illustrations for concepts like ingroup bias, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and cognitive dissonance. This one will go to the top of the class.

UPDATE – D’Souza admitted he was wrong on his claim with a sorry, not sorry tweet.

If you click the tweet and read through the thread, you will see the “sorry, not sorry” attitude of the response. He still hasn’t taken down the original tweet. D’Souza insists on promoting a false picture of historiography surrounding party realignment. He tells his followers that historians obscure the role of Democrats in the defense of slavery. They don’t obscure anything. He isn’t a great revealer of hidden truths. What D’Souza obscures is the fact that the parties realigned and that there were Republican racists all along the way. He also insists that the parties now are of the same character as they were 150 years ago.

His admission is striking and had to happen because he was caught red handed. His reputation should be in some jeopardy now for anyone who objectively evaluates his rhetoric. Prior to his admission, his claims were absolute. He said many people had already spent much time trying to debunk his claim. In fact, it took a few historians about 30 minutes to counter it. This was a devastating rebuke. D’Souza’s confident claims should never again be taken at face value by anyone. It isn’t that scholars don’t make factual mistakes, of course they do. However, true scholars aren’t as absolutistic and arrogant as D’Souza. He went out on a limb above a canyon, and it was cut off.

229 thoughts on “A Teachable Moment: Dinesh D’Souza Refuses to Take Back False Claim about Republicans Owning Slaves in 1860 (UPDATED)”

  1. Looks like D’Souza is up to his old tricks again. Apparently he’s made a “documentary” “proving” voter fraud in AZ. Bragging that the Yuma sheriff is investigating because of the movie. He isn’t (the investigation has nothing to do with the movie.

    And that he “solved a murder” with his “analysis”. Except indictments were made 2 months earlier.

    1. Both of those articles are well worth reading, even though my eyebrows got lost in my hairline. Since 71% of Republicans mostly or fully believe that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected, it’s profitable for D’Souza to push his ‘geolocation data’ on the already gullible.

    2. Ken, the documentary is called 2000 Mules and I was bumfoozled upon seeing it used as an authoritative source in the ongoing, high-profile legal case between John Eastman (Trump lawyer) and the House of Reps January 6 Committee (the one where the district judge noted in a March ruling that Eastman and Trump “more likely than not” engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election).

      Eastman filed his reply brief last Friday, 5/19, and in it he refers to 2000 Mules as further proof of election fraud based on its “exhaustive analysis of geospatial cell phone data and drop box video surveillance”.

      The brief can be found here and 2000 Miles is found on page 6 near the top.

      https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.345.0.pdf

      1. Wow. looks like Eastman is trying to litigate all the election fraud claims. Likely he’s trying to use the “if you can’t dazzle them with dexterity, then baffle them with bullshit” approach.

        It would be great if that backfired on him and the court decides to examine those claims, but most likely the judge will ignore all that arguing it has no merit in deciding the issue of privilege.

  2. So a little detail on the republicans that owned slaves allegedly. These were democrats in the border states who did not want to split the nation and did not want war. They defected to the republican party on the eve of the civil war. The border states that stayed in the union were a delicate matter. Long story.

      1. You can find it and then go back into records yourself to prove it’s true or not. Hint interview with Larry Elder where it came up. Can’t post links here, and you know how to use Bing, right?

          1. No that is EXACTLY how it works. YOU made a claim republican slave holders “were democrats in the border states”.

            It is up to YOU to provide actual evidence of that claim.

            Warren did provide evidence of the claims he made in this post, He cited a video of D’Souza making the statement, and then cited an actual historian (Kruse) who presented evidence that D’Souza’s claim was false.

            Now it’s your turn.

          2. Well, here’s a little help to you from the article, or a similar article, attacking Disnesh. “Historians on Twitter, led by Princeton’s Kevin Kruse, quickly rose to the occasion and found ten. ” So you hunt down Kruse and get those names and check records. Meantime, this supports that 4,000,000 slave were owned by democrats because only 10 republicans were found to have slaves in 1860 census, and those were dicey.

          3. 10 is not 0 as D’Souza claimed. Kruse et. al. only needed to find 1 to prove D’Souza wrong. he found 10, in a matter of minutes. Further, Kruse provided the records showing they were slave holders AND republicans.

            While you (and D’Souza) have provided NO evidence of your claims.

          4. I provided you with how to find Dinesh’s reply to that. I can’t post links here. Given the liberal dems are so hysterical to shift blame for their sins onto republicans, their claims should be suspect by everyone. They say stupid things like the parties switched sides after the civil war. That makes no sense at all, but I’m guessing it does to you.

  3. Dinesh flushed out the left which found a whole 10 republicans who owned slaves? TEN? That is statistically zero. And given the Republican party was founded on anti-slavery, it’s suspicious. Then there is the problem of dowry slaves, slaves that are given to a woman in her dowry. Ulysses S Grant’s wife came with one. He freed that slave.

    1. Zero is zero. I know math is hard but D’Souza was proven wrong and didn’t want to admit it.

  4. So 10 out of the probably 300,00 slave owners were Republican. And Democrats still try to use race to grab power and no progressives can see any contradiction or problem in that. OK boomer.

    1. Wow. your reading comprehension skills are terrible. No wonder you are so easily taken in by people like Dsouza. The 10 republicans slave owners were simply to demonstrate Dsouza’s claim of “no republican slave owners” was in fact false. No one was claiming there were “only 10” republican slave owners.

      1. None of this would have been an issue if Dinesh had either said “very few Republicans were slave owners” or something similar or if he had been an adult and admitted that his comment “No Republican slave owners” was not accurate. But the ego and desire of this convicted criminal and fraud to “own the liberals” prevents him from doing so. He needs to put on his big boy pants and act like a mature adult for once.

  5. Haha, checkmate conservatives. We found double digits of republican slave owners in 1860 among the 4,000,000+ slaves owned by democrats at the time. I guess we really are the party of facts and reason.

  6. It sounds like he was in error and was proven wrong. He then modified his statement to reflect the new information in a certain blow to his ego. IMHO, Tone is largely irrelevant both in his reply and in the article above. Neither is exactly dispassionate, but they are both reasonably civil. I also strongly suspect his upcoming speeches will reflect the correct information if he touches on the topic at all.

    1. Many slave owners became Republicans. These ten showed up after about 30 minutes of looking in order to debunk D’Souza’s argument. There were more. Before the Republican party formed some of the people who became Republicans owned slaves. Some kept them and some freed them. History isn’t as neat and clean as D’Souza wants you to believe.

    2. Go back to D’Souza’s original claim:

      He said one Republican who owned a slave in 1860 would require him to take back his claim.

      When you make absurd claims, they beg to be countered. D’Souza is a walking, talking absurdity.

  7. The parties “realigned”
    Laughable.

    393,975 slave owners -10= 393,965 Democrat slave owners.
    I think the point stands.

    1. where did you get the 393,975 and 10 numbers from?’

      “I think the point stands.”

      If the point is that D’Souza is lying, then I would agree with you.

  8. You would never hold a democrat to the same scrutiny. I am not a republican, but I am anti-democrat. I do think there is a strong disconnect from you understanding WHY the republicans fought so hard against the institution of slavery. It was NOT because they weren’t racist. It was because they were capitalists, industrialist of the North. This is the same Republican Party ideas of TODAY. Slavery is a threat against capitalism for the output of the worker is not allocated to the worker. Slavery as an institution threatened the Northern Republicans entire idea and philosophy of an industrialist north. The Republicans do deserve the credit of also opposing forms of slavery up through today. When the big shift occurred in the second half of the 20th century, many former southern democrats looked to the idea of individual work ideas of the Republican Party. This means limited government, lower taxes, and reliance on individual work and the fruits of their labor. The Republicans are NOT the party of slavery, or racism, as they never appealed to the racist southern democrats that were mostly dead, dying out, or radically changing there racists ideals by the 1970s.

    The Democrat party is still the same Democrat party that dominated slavery in America, opposed all the amendments you discussed. The DNC records and addresses in many districts and states are the EXACT same as they were over 100 years ago, when the southern Democrats had a Jim Crow mindset. You are doing MORE of what you blame D’Souza for doing in your attempt to dilute the facts that Democrats were the party of slavery, and the Republicans were the party that stood up to the spread of slavery into new and existing territory’s. Again, it wasn’t because they loved black people, it’s because they opposed the institution of slavery due to the above threats.

    Democrats today live off the premise of forced transactions of an individual and his gross paying of taxes. When you work, and your output is taken by force or threat of force by another human, group? Or institution, you are using a similar fundamental mindset of the slave owners. Who again were by a HUGE majority the democrats.

    You know this. You are not an objective mind. Your more of a sheep. But I forgive you, for you have been conditioned to think this way.

    1. “You would never hold a democrat to the same scrutiny.”

      I don’t believe that at all. It is just that Warren is more focused on what christians are doing. I.e. cleaning his own house before commenting on others.

      As for the rest of your post. I see a lot of claims, but no evidence.

    2. You and D’Souza have something in common. You both have your own personal versions of history. By that last line, it also seems you have a bit of a Messiah complex – rather creepy.

    3. Members of which party today want to keep Confederate statues up?

      Republicans are living off the middle class paying plenty of taxes. Have you noticed the deficits recently?

      You have twisted yourself in a knot, as D’Souza does, trying to make reality one-sided.

      1. First. Jim Crow era statues were put up by Democrats, again. Modern day opposition to these statues isn’t a uniform Republican sentiment due to “white supremacy” or “confederate ideals”.

        By the same logic of extracting the few to the many, the Democrats believe America deserved 9/11. Democrats support the same terrorist ideals of the KKK. Which the Democrats also supported. Your ledger is full of red.

        1. Suggest you get to know some Democrats. Virtually nothing you said there is actually what Democrats typically believe. You stated some weird fringe theories that I have found both left and right extremists sometimes believe.

          As I go to events taking photos of who shows up, Democrats show up with signs, right wing (not necessarily Republican) extremists show up with guns and armor.

          Who’s supporting the ideals and tactics of the KKK here?

          1. Yes. No tea partiers have ever been killed at a tea party protest, but a tea partier did kill someone at an antifa protest.

          2. Not really clear on the comparison. The Tea Party did not have a singular focus, unlike Antifacists, but often they would protest against everything from big governments, to Wall Street, to taxation. It depended on the local Tea Party group and often was a series of local issues combined with a few national ones.

            By contrast, “Antifa” is not a national or local group per say, and their focus is singular: Anti-Fascism. Antifa participants come from across the political spectrum to unite on the simple issue of opposing fascists and fascist violence. The concept of Antifa has existed since the late 70’s and it has sprung up repeatedly whenever fascists threaten society.

            They really aren’t comparable in any way I can see, but feel free to point out anything I may have missed.

  9. Maybe this was a tricky way to get Democrat themselves educate people that over 98 percent of slave holders were Democrats.

    1. While it was probably less than that, there is no dispute that the Democratic party supported slavery at that time. Historians and most middle school students know that.

      1. So why is there still a Democratic Party? Sounds like they forfeited any credibility long ago.

  10. Really? You all think it was easily refuted? These people have been studying this since Dinesh made the statement. Now, libtards…take note. Did you see how when someone brought proof that he was wrong, Dinesh admitted it? Yeah…take a note from that followers! So they found 10…and I’m sure flipped EVERY stone and checked EVERY crevice. The fact remains that it is the democrat party that was FOR slavery. And they still are. Just the plantation has become inner cities now. President Trump has done more for minorities than ANY president in the modern era. FACT. Unemployment at lowest point for ALL MINORITIES! See..that’s what we call PROOF! Yet none of you libtards will recant any of the lies you claim. BTW…anyone know how many Democrat LIES have been proven to be HOAXES just in 2019 so far??

    1. You know in my old age, I am getting tired of people who start Disqus accounts just to lie so I deleted the above comment and banned the account.

      1. Thank you Dr. Throckmorton. Lies have no place in adult conversation. Dinesh D’Souza’s followers need to learn this valuable lesson.

  11. “His admission is striking and had to happen because he was caught red handed. His reputation should be in some jeopardy now for anyone who objectively evaluates his rhetoric. Prior to his admission, his claims were absolute. He said many people had already spent much time trying to debunk his claim. In fact, it took a few historians about 30 minutes to counter it.”

    Except that D’Souza made the claim openly 2 years ago, publicly several times and at major universities. It did take 2 years for someone to “refute” this absolute claim. You can easily find his talks on Youtube and date them. If you listen to his presentation the point of the claim was that it was REFUTABLE and he could be PROVEN WRONG. His larger claim is clear that the party of slavey and racism is the Democrat party and that that fact is being blurred by the current claims that “Slavery is America’s original sin.” While a very few Republicans in the south owned slaves they clearly opposed the ownership – which is why they became republicans – a newly created party whose primary reason for being was to oppose slavery.

    Slave ownership in the south came with inheritance and in some states it was very difficult to free slaves as their ability to survive would be in question. Selling slaves could put them in the hands of cruel owners.

    So now, this blogger claims that D’Souza’s whole point about slavery, racism and the Republican party is debunked and that no one should trust him now that his absolute claim has been refuted. I have confirmation Bias. Actually I am exhausted with being called a racist for opposing welfare.

    “He tells his followers that historians obscure the role of Democrats in the defense of slavery. They don’t obscure anything.” Interesting. Can you point to me a book by a major historian that shows the role that the Democrat party had in forming Jim Crow laws? Can you name me a major historian who is rebuking Nike over the claim that the founding of the USA was essentially racist?

  12. So you found ten cases? Okay so D’ Souza was wrong, but the basic claim is the same. So 10 Republicans owned slaves. WOW! that just proves the point that the blame is shared, NOT. You are some self righteous pompous people, you can’t even admit that your party, the Democratic party, is basically solely responsible for the horrendous racist past of the United States. Get off you leftist, self righteous, blame shifting, finger pointing butts and just admit that the guy has a point. Admit the facts and just say, “hey Democrats were wrong, we messed up in the past.” Republicans are the ones that have fought for rights of individuals for the entirety of our history and Democrats have fought for group politics, Those are the facts, sorry if you do not like it.

    1. He doesn’t have a point, and no Democrats alive today owned slaves, so neither do you.

    2. The only thing at issue was D’Souza’s false claim about GOP members owning slaves in 1860. There were more than 10, those were the ones found after about 30 minutes of looking. But even if there were many more, it doesn’t change the fact that Republicans as a party in 1860 opposed the advancement of slavery. As a party, they favored civil rights for blacks later when the Dems didn’t. No one disputes this. It is only in the strange world of D’Souzaland that people think they have been kept from this knowledge. However, even that is incomplete. The “horrible racist past” goes back further than the two party system to the formation of the Constitution itself. The division broke down along North – South lines which I am sure you know since you are such a student of history. And as I am sure you know Republicans couldn’t have fought for the rights of individuals for the entirety of our history since the first GOP convention wasn’t held until 1856. But since you are interested only in the facts, I am sure you just misspoke and are glad for the correction.

  13. The vast majority of slave owners were also Southern Protestants, Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Presbyterians…

    Here’s once popular proslavery pieces by one of the slave owning founders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Thornton Stringfellow, pastor of Stevensburg Baptist Church in Culpeper County, Virginia (according to the excessively handy Wikipedia.)

    https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/stringfellow/bio.html

  14. Nazi concentrarion camps were forced labor camps. They were not for illegal immigrants but rather for war captives, internal dissidents and Jews. Some like Auschwitz had extermination facilities so they also functioned as death camps. So where is the valid analogy here? https://t.co/vrjFNavyWy— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) June 18, 2019

    Now Dinesh is trying to nuance away Trump’s concentration camps at the border.
    The US I grew up in was better than this.

  15. Now Dinesh is trying to nuance away Trump’s concentration camps at the border.
    The US I grew up in was better than this.

      1. It is very disturbing that this can happen so easily in the US. We really have hit a new low in so many areas. So much for MAGA. What I want to know is why we aren’t marching on Washington en masse, and why the media is not full of references to these issues (and demanding that the White House resume press conferences and with a legitimate press secretary). It is not hyperbole to say that our core values as a country are being ripped from us bit by bit (and in other instances surrendered). This should not be a right or left issue, it is an American issue. Enough already.

        1. It is not hyperbole to say that our core values as a country are being ripped from us bit by bit (and in other instances surrendered).

          No, not hyperbole. And I wish I had a clue on what would make a difference.

          Today I happened to read a piece were Daniel Ziblatt, professor of Government at Harvard, hypothesized that right-wing populism emerges when conservative parties fall apart or disintegrate. Another article talks about the emergence of concentration camps around the world in the last 20 years, and how they relate to Carl Schmitt’s State of Exception, where the sovereign power possesses the authority to suspend the legal system and declare a state of exception if the country faced an existential threat to its integrity . Both were written before Trump took office.

          Bottom line, I’m not sure that the issue of being “American” (and not right or left) is enough and with the complete subjection of the Republican Party to Trump that it can help to make it an “American” issue. Look at Sam/Jason’s response to Dr. T’s articles that point directly to the lies and alt facts pushed upon the populace. He blamed the Democrats for them. And he’s not alone.

    1. Convicted felon D’Souza doesn’t understand that no one is asking him about his opinions on concentration camps. If he wants to join AOC’s conversation, let’s see him run for U.S. House of Representatives. As a convicted felon and proven fraud, is D’Souza even eligible to run for public office? What a joke.

      1. “Convicted felon” – depends on the state. Some states will restore voting rights if all conditions are met, and with voting rights, one could presumably run. “Proven fraud” is no bar to running, and not that huge a bar to being elected – in some states.

        1. According to FactCheck, whatever states have to say about convicted felons applies only to the states, and not Congress. Felons can serve in Congress if Congress allows them to serve and doesn’t vote to expel them. So, yes, Dinesh could run for the House of Representatives and serve if Congress allows it, even if he’s in prison.

          1. Good point. And most amusing to think about someone who is not legally able to vote serving in Congress and voting for thousands – amusing in a warped way.

          2. Honestly, the bar has been set so low at this point (even for the Executive) that I can’t see anyone caring that much.

      1. Yea, right.

        con·cen·tra·tion camp: “A place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities.” Sound familiar?

        Then read Wikipedia’s description of Turning Point USA and its founder and Fuehrer, the despicably privileged little white boy Charlie Kirk.

        1. Surely, these illegal border jumpers are political prisoners and the conditions of US border detention centers are bad and must be improved, but these actual Holocaust survivors contend that they are not as monstrous as the concentration camps they have lived in. I read about Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk, they are Trump’s lobbyists and Charlie is an impressionable kid, but they are so far removed from the actual German Nazis and definitely not anti-Semitic. Even if TP USA is prejudiced, it is still important to hear the messages of these Jewish gentlemen. To simply dismiss what they say just because TP USA filmed it would be irresponsible.

          1. Why hello Sam, I see you have been reincarnated again. What don’t you understand about the owner of a blog having the right to deny you access?

          2. When institutions of higher learning pay him to leave and blogs boot him out of their real estate,
            Sam/Jason/inca blames liberals for his troubles and promptly changes his name. I’m not a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a healthy way to deal with his life challenges. Well done, David. Again!

          3. Anyone commenting on a personally owned blog does so at the pleasure of the owner. Warren is one of the more tolerant of these, but when you are told you can’t comment anymore (for whatever reason), that’s it. No one has the right to impose themselves, particularly by deception.

            If sam80/jason/inca nitta did not illustrate disrespect enough through his comments, he has done so through these actions. He has every right to create his own blog and blather on there forever. It is rather easy to see why the college decided it was better to refund his money than to deal with him.

          4. Do you know if Disqus supports banning by user name, ip, both or other? I can’t imagine user name is enough.

          5. You are talking to sam80/jason. This is just another sock-puppet of his. I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you.

          6. You are talking to sam80/jason. This is just another sock-puppet of his. I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you.

    1. I would like this 100 times if I could! I can imagine Mr. Bean doing “We are most amused” with D’Souza’s version of history. The resemblance is pure comedy gold.

      1. Mr Bean on alternative ‘history’ would be rather good, I must say! Perhaps Warren could write the script?

          1. D’Souza is promoting anti-liberal/progressive bias just like a good number of people who comment here are promoting anti-conservative bias, which makes the whole thing look very hypocritical.

          2. Except you still need two things to equate. Nothing’s been proffered here to compare to D’Souza’s … I don’t even have a word for what he’s doing. Casuistry I guess?

          3. Jason was trying to equate what D’Souza does to commenters on this website, as if it is all just a matter of opinion. That’s absurd and would mean there are no facts. D’Souza has a record of statements which do not have any basis in fact, and which go against common understanding. This is very much like David Barton.

          4. That pretty much sums up his contributions in total, but it still seemed to need some measure of response.

          5. Perhaps, you should check threads on Franklin Graham, Candace Owens, and obviously Donald Trump besides D’Souza…just type those into a search engine and see what the general climate is all about. To me, it appears like a great deal of emotional upheaval when these individuals and what they stand for, are being discussed. Occasionally, strong emotions impair us from making rational arguments.

          6. You make a lot if insinuations, but provide now actual evidence. As you have pointed out you know how to use the search engine here. So perhaps you can cite some actual examples where Warren has made emotional rather rational arguments.

          7. Here is an example:
            /2019/05/28/special-day-of-prayer-for-the-enemies-of-the-president/

            Didn’t you forget how you and others went after LT?

          8. To be fair to Dr. T, he didn’t demonstrate sufficient grace towards those whom he opposed but I already addressed those issues over there, you can check it out. I was saying that in general when people have strong emotions, it becomes difficult to reason in a rational way.

          9. As I said earlier, this was my personal observation and feedback, but if you believe in what you’re doing is right, then it’s your right. In the same way, D’Souza and Graham, with whom you disagree, also believe that what they do overall is right.

          10. And again, “False equivalence is a bedrock component of propaganda.” This seems to be a habit with you.

          11. Welcome to the USA! D’Souza and Throckmorton are both American citizens who have a right to promote their ideas, including running blogs on social media, especially if their values are vastly different from one another. The equivalence and habit, I’m talking about is being American citizens.

          12. He’s not making any sense because he is making it up as he goes along. It’s called trolling.

          13. LT has a dismal record commenting here over the years. Regular commenters are aware of that and not inclined to give him much slack (or ignore him entirely). On many blogs he would have been banned long ago, as you should be for reactivating a four year old account immediately after your sam80 persona was banned.

          14. So, if you’re writing from a conservative perspective and it makes liberals uncomfortable, you’re risking getting yourself banned from here. Lesson learned.

          15. And you wonder why you have problems with commenters. Just to reiterate, sock-puppets are reason enough to be banned most anywhere.

          16. Ah…The always wrong Sam morphed into the always wrong Jason. How lucky can one blog get.

            Good job catching it and thank you for pointing it out and putting a stop to it, for now at least.

          17. Not at all.

            However, if you disrupt the conversation with a lot of irrelevant posts and refuse to cite any sources for outlandish claims you will quickly be ignored.

          18. I’m thinking you are right. I wonder what commenter will appear as his next incarnation.

          19. How did you figure out that it is a 4 years old reactivated account? Before he made it private? Good job!

          20. Yes, it was open for a few hours. He hadn’t posted here (or anywhere) in four years, and had a total of about 7 comments. There were other signs as well, but there is no doubt.

          21. I fail to see how that article supports your claim. Warren is simply pointing out the hypocrisy of people like Graham. And he does it in a very clever way. Perhaps he was being to clever for you.

            As for LT, he has a long and disreputable history of posting here. Any long-timers on this blog can tell you his pattern to disrupting the conversations. I blocked him long ago, but I do remind other long-timers about wasting time engaging with him (i.e. don’t feed the trolls).

          22. Is that what you see? I see all types, conservative and liberal, many of whom comment from a common database of agreed facts based on evidence that arises from history and science, and government and humanities, for example.

            If I said Jesus was born in Room 345 of the Hilton Hotel, I’d be going against all the agreed facts of the birth in a manger in the Biblical database. It’s an ‘alternate fact’.

            Dinesh dishes out alternate facts. You can call it bias promotion if you want, but then bias promotion becomes an alternate fact, also.

          23. Well, I see that Dinesh is telling half truths or half facts, such as that the Republican Party was anti-slavery therefore no Republican ever owned slaves. But, we learned that this was not entirely true, and he did it to shame the Democratic party because in 1860s, the Dems were officially pro-slavery, and those who vote Democrats. That’s an example of promotion of bias, by making it look like Republicans were absolutely the good guys, while the Democrats absolutely the bad ones.

          24. The Democratic Party of 1860 was very different from that of 2010. Something similar could be said of the Republican Party.

            Perhaps one of D’Souza’s ‘mistakes’ is to confuse labels with reality?

            My great-grandfather switched parties in the 1920s, when he moved from MI (where he was a registered Dem) to NC (where he joined the GOP), indicating the regional differences within parties. Those have lessened somewhat in recent times, I think.

          25. I agree with you, but according to D’Souza, Democratic Party has not changed in 150 years at all, and this is what his consistent message seems to be, especially in a book called The Big Lie, or something like that.

          26. Difficult to see what is D’Souza’s agenda; or maybe he just enjoys taking the p***!

          27. …what is D’Souza’s agenda

            Fleecing the faithful with his movies and books. Taking the p*** is a bonus.

          28. Good going on a reply that doesn’t speak to to the actual content of my comment that called out your accusation of “a good number of people who comment here” promote an anti-conservative bias.

            Calling out Dinesh’s (or anyone’s) lies is not an anti-conservative activity.

          29. There is nothing truly conservative about D’Souza. He just finds it easier to sell his brand of snake oil on that side of the street. Shame on conservatives for not calling him out more often, but that’s the way it is at the moment.

          30. I’m sure we all have our bias (to be biased is human?). But the key question is: are we lying? And what about D’Souza? Is he merely biased, or has he been telling porkies? Or what?

          31. Well, regarding this recent matter, he admitted that he made a mistake when he said that no Republicans owned slaves. But we don’t know whether he knew about it and withheld that information intentionally. Unless we have ESP powers, we can’t really read his heart and mind. My personal take is that D’Souza is preferring conservative Republicans over progressive Democrats so he approaches these issues rather unobjectively but so does this website. Not planning on arguing about that, just making a personal observation.

            PS: If D’Souza honestly believes in what he does, then it makes him a very poor scholar and researcher.

          32. “… but so does this website.”

            Would you like to give us example of an “unobjective” post on this website? Perhaps you could also point where opinion has been presented ‘as fact’, rather than declared to be the opinion of the author?

            (Of course, reader comments are often crammed with opinion …)

          33. See, my comment down below about typing certain names into a search engine, which will pop up threads, like Franklin Graham, the most recent one.

          34. Well, posts on this blog are concerned with particular topics in certain areas of live, so one might expect certain names to crop up more than others.

          35. On the right side of this blog, there is a section with a search button, everytime I typed any notable names there, it would give a reasonable number of posts. Also, there is list of categories below the search button listed alphabetically, ranging from “Dinesh D’Souza,” “Donald Trump,” and “nationalism.” It makes it very helpful to look for different posts.

          36. That in itself is not a problem. Remember that a major concern of Warren (and many others, of course) is the relationship between religion and the state. Given that, in contrast to most other developed democracies, there are vocal ‘religious’ persons making particular ‘religious’ claims about the current administration as well American history generally, it is hardly surprising that certain persons keep being mentioned in Warren’s posts.

            Obviously, if this blog were about cars or breeding pedigree dogs, multiple mentions of D’S and Co. would be somewhat odd.

          37. I suspect that he might prefer the blog to be about something else …

            I suspect also he does not appreciate is just how ‘free’ people are to express their views on this blog, even when those views are highly critical of Warren’s work. I used to comment (very carefully and always in a moderate tone) on Scott Lively’s blog – until I was blocked. No freedom of speech there!

          38. Like I said on that thread about Franklin Graham, positive portrayal of conservatives/Evangelicals/Republicans is not very much liked here, hence it’s unobjective. It’s totally unproductive to engage in a debate about that subject. I didn’t know that Lively had a blog, isn’t it pretty scary, huh?

          39. But I don’t think there is an example of such a “positive portrayal” that has attracted adverse comment, is there? And remember that I was really talking here about the posts on this blog, not the comments.

            Yes, Lively’s blog is IMO pretty scary!

          40. Like I said on that thread about Franklin Graham, positive portrayal of conservatives/Evangelicals/Republicans is not very much liked here, hence it’s unobjective.

            Not speaking for Dr. T, but one of his focuses is on Christian scholarship and its integrity in in the academic and cultural arenas. Scholarship that writes what the author wants to say and believe and what the audience wants to hear and believe, is not reliable or dependable when it’s not based on facts and truth. Graham, D’Souza and Barton are examples of egregiously bad Christian scholarship. These dishonest works then taint Christian scholars like Dr. T, Mark Knoll and John Fea, who believe that facts and Christianity can exist on an equal and level plane with the secular scholarship that receives much more attention from the culture and the world.

            Not sure if I explained this well, but IOW, there’s not much (if anything) to positively portray about Graham, D’Souza and Barton and this is the wrong place to look for it.

          41. Facts are facts which aren’t Christian or non-Christian. D’Souza and his type decide in advance what they want to find and bend their presentation of information to fit the pre-determined view they have. True scholars look for the facts and present them.

  16. It isn’t that scholars don’t make factual mistakes, of course they do. However, true scholars aren’t as absolutistic and arrogant as D’Souza. He went out on a limb above a canyon, and it was cut off.

    Exactly this. An actual academic makes it clear when he’s out on a limb out of respect for his chosen profession and the minds of others. His conduct has been ruthlessly unprofessional.

  17. Sigh. The modification to the original claim doesn’t work, either. The point of bringing up the fact that delegates to the Republican convention owned slaves was to refute the claim that no Republicans owned them. It doesn’t mean that the only Republican slave owners were those few delegates to the Republican convention. I have absolutely no doubt that other Republicans owned slaves as well, but they would be much more difficult to identify. The population of the United States was approximately 31.5 million people, including about 4 million slaves. It is beyond belief that all but a few of them were owned by Democrats.

    1. So you have an opinion based on belief – that all but a few of them were owned by Democrats. Yet, from the beginning of the country Slavery was a moral issue and that issue became increasingly focused, divided, with finally a new party emerging that was decidedly anti-slavery. Yet, you are believing that a fair percent of that new party would have owned slaves. Then you say that the modification by D’Souza does not work.

      D’Souza was using an absolute claim to make the point clearly that the Republican party was the anti-slavery party and he made that absolute claim for two years. He clearly stated it could be refuted. But the essence of his point remains.

      1. “So you have an opinion based on belief”

        No, it is an opinion based on evidence (known republican slave holders, number of slaves, pop. of the US) and reason (deductions made from the evidence).

        “the essence of his point remains.”

        the “essence” of his point was to distort historical facts to misrepresent the issues today. I.e. claiming historically republicans never owned slaves, to (mis)represent the republicans of today as not being racist. Ignoring more recent events (i.e. Johnson’s “southern strategy” in which many of the more racist elements of the democratic party fled to the republican party).

        1. So you have evidence for 10 republican slave holders – from KY and MI. The number of slaves at that time (4 million) is irrelevant to the question of who owned them. Your reasoning is “It is beyond belief that all but a few of them were owned by Democrats.” Yet, from the history of the debate from 1800 to 1860 that is far more likely that as D’Souza points out that Democrats owned slaves than that there was some large percentage of Republicans who owned slaves in 1860.

          “(mis)represent the republicans of today as not being racist.” In 2019? Really? Sigh.

          I am deeply fatigued with the whole “racist” default. Talk about non-factual.

          Do you believe that President Trump called the white supremacist in Charlotte NC “fine people?”

          https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/the-fine-people-hoax-funnel/

          1. I didn’t present any evidence about republican slave owners. thatotherjean did.

            I never said anything about a ‘racist default.’ Nor that all republicans are racist.

            “Do you believe that President Trump called the white supremacist in Charlotte NC “fine people?””

            Not only do I believe it, I heard him say it.

          2. I didn’t present any evidence about republican slave owners. thatotherjean did.

            I never said anything about a ‘racist default.’ Nor that all republicans are racist.

            “Do you believe that President Trump called the white supremacist in Charlotte NC “fine people?””

            Not only do I believe it, I heard him say it.

        2. So you have evidence for 10 republican slave holders – from KY and MI. The number of slaves at that time (4 million) is irrelevant to the question of who owned them. Your reasoning is “It is beyond belief that all but a few of them were owned by Democrats.” Yet, from the history of the debate from 1800 to 1860 that is far more likely that as D’Souza points out that Democrats owned slaves than that there was some large percentage of Republicans who owned slaves in 1860.

          “(mis)represent the republicans of today as not being racist.” In 2019? Really? Sigh.

          I am deeply fatigued with the whole “racist” default. Talk about non-factual.

          Do you believe that President Trump called the white supremacist in Charlotte NC “fine people?”

          https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/the-fine-people-hoax-funnel/

      2. David or Sam – If this is Sam, you might as well delete yourself because this will be gone.

        1. I am not falsifying anyone. I am a political conservative in my 50’s who has been a republican since I was 18. Raised in the Midwest, I have traveled the world extensively and I am an expert in cross cultural communications. I lost my first apartment just 6 months after I was married because we invited black children to our apartment for a Christmas party. I became a republican seeing how the polices and politics destroyed the people around me in the large mid-west city I lived in.

          I am deeply interested in truth. You are saying that you study cognitive dissonance and teach it. Are you willing to undergo some cognitive dissonance? President Trump did NOT call the racist demonstrators in Charlotte “Fine People” and I can prove it from the original text of what he actually said.

          One of the deep problems we have is the inability to truly look at truth. To actually discuss.

          I am deeply respectful of truth, but your point that “concepts like ingroup bias, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and cognitive dissonance” is and true of both sides of the political conversation.

          1. The truth is that D’Souza lies and misrepresents history to support is own political views. How about you trying to examine that truth?

          2. Sure I am trying to examine that truth. I just am coming at it from a historical point and working to identify which portion of what he says is not true. I searched for this specific claim and and found this blog. I was interested if anyone had proven him wrong on that absolute claim and I found out it was from this blog. On the other hand it is clear that taking two years to refute the claim shows it was substantial even if worded in an absolute challenge.

          3. It didn’t take two years to refute the claim for those who refuted it. Once Kevin Kruse and colleagues heard the claim, it took about 30 minutes to do so. They stopped at 10 but it is very likely that there were more Republicans who owned slaves.

            If D’Souza had done the work of a historian, he would have found this himself. All it took was to compare GOP delegate rolls with record of slave ownership. He simply assumed he was right. His whole program is filled with these assumptions.

            He recently claimed that progressive democrats were responsible for the eugenics movement. However, most of the leaders in that movement were Republicans. In fact, all of the board members for one of the leading eugenics organization in the late 1920s through the 1940s were affiliated with the GOP. See /2019/03/06/eugenics-and-republicans-what-dinesh-dsouza-should-learn-from-history/ and /2019/03/07/dear-dinesh-dsouza-no-self-described-democrats/.

        2. I am not falsifying anyone. I am a political conservative in my 50’s who has been a republican since I was 18. Raised in the Midwest, I have traveled the world extensively and I am an expert in cross cultural communications. I lost my first apartment just 6 months after I was married because we invited black children to our apartment for a Christmas party. I became a republican seeing how the polices and politics destroyed the people around me in the large mid-west city I lived in.

          I am deeply interested in truth. You are saying that you study cognitive dissonance and teach it. Are you willing to undergo some cognitive dissonance? President Trump did NOT call the racist demonstrators in Charlotte “Fine People” and I can prove it from the original text of what he actually said.

          One of the deep problems we have is the inability to truly look at truth. To actually discuss.

          I am deeply respectful of truth, but your point that “concepts like ingroup bias, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and cognitive dissonance” is and true of both sides of the political conversation.

        3. Warren, do you have access to the web (html) logs for this site? It would be a pretty easy way to verify if people are using multiple ids on here.

  18. He claims to be an historian and he set the conditions that even one exception would prove him wrong. It took no time for someone to find 10 exceptions to his claim. He should have known the facts before making the statement. I honestly don’t understand why more people on the conservative side of the spectrum do not object to this man. Then again, my mind often works from my experience of decades past before the madness set in and truth lost its significance to some.

    1. I’m pretty sure D’Souza knew the facts before he made those statements. The issue is that as long as the people he (and others like him) is talking to don’t call him out on it, it doesn’t matter to him that he is wrong.

    2. Does anyone know what he bases his claim of being a ‘historian’ on? I thought he was a David Barton type of historian. “I’m a historian because I say I am.”

      1. It took me a while to find it, but Wikipedia says he has a BA in English from Dartmouth, earned in 1983. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, so it’s not that he’s not intelligent—but he is a Conservative who has fallen for a bunch of conspiracy theories. Unless I missed something, though, he’s a historian because he says he is.

        1. The actor Tommy Lee Jones also has an undergraduate degree in English. Yet Tommy Lee Jones has the integrity to avoid spreading lies and playing armchair historian.

          D’Souza and his fundamentalist followers are a prime example of intellectual sloth. Documented liar and fraud David Barton produces the same rotting fruit.

          1. Yes. Dolph Lundgren has a graduate degree in chemical engineering (University of Sydney) and received a Fulbright to attend MIT. Followers of D’Souza, David Barton, and Ken Ham need to take note.

          2. Google can help you within seconds. Or you can choose to remain ignorant. Your choice.

        2. Thank you! I found an article from 2014 in The Atlantic, What Happened to Dinesh D’Souza? Apparently, Dino used to work with a real historian, Gordon Wood, but in 2014 was working with the guy who invented the Flip Tree, an easily set-up artificial Christmas tree, as his historian. That explains a lot, right there.

          1. A historian of fake Christmas trees? I guess that being a lying political historian is a more profitable gig than that, but Phi Beta Kappa should be asking for its key back.

          1. And if he had it would probably be exaggerated on his website — like if he audited one graduate course at Princeton Seminary it would say “Graduate Education at Princeton”.

          2. Funny how they denounce the “ivy tower elitist” institutions, right up until they can find a way to put them on their CVs.

  19. D’Souza knows his supporters are safe within the bubble he helped create. He’ll be fundraising off this “attack” by those mean old liberal academics, next.

  20. The delegates proven by the twitter feed to be slaveowners were all banned from voting in the Republican Party convention. Kentucky and Virginia were not allowed to vote because they were slave states.

    It is therefore a truism that no slaveowners ever had a say in the Republican Party.

    When John Underwood (mentioned in the tweets) objected to his state’s lack of a vote at the convention, this is what the party told him:

    It was because there was a just God in heaven, and his justice would not slumber forever. It was because their political Masonry had been cementing the wall for crushed humanity; because their hunters had been hunting down Christian women, for deeds which might almost call down an archangel. Were they willing that this blighting curse should be extended into Kansas? [No, no!]

    https://books.google.com/books?id=AzoPAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA40q=Cook#v=snippet&q=Underwood&f=false at page 80.

    Ironic. This makes the Republicans look even better than before, doesn’t it?

    D’Souza should’ve led with that instead of lying his ass off.

  21. I use instances like this one in my classes as illustrations for concepts like ingroup bias, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and cognitive dissonance.

    For ease of use, perhaps you (and the APA) could combine this litany of biases and dissonances into an easily recognizable term like D’Souza Syndrome. Fits nicely in a syllabus.

    For the record, I’ve not heard any progressive or Democrat claim that the Republican Party of 1860 was the party of slavery or deny that the KKK was mostly made of Democrats. However, by 1964 the Democrats took on Civil Rights while the Republicans went with the Southern Strategy in the late 60s and 70s. These policy and position changes are not in dispute. So what the knuckfuckle is Dino talking about?

    1. Yeah. I just hesitate to lump all conservatives in with the crowd that believes Hitler was a liberal and Trump is better than A. Lincoln, as depicted by D’Souza in a movie.

    2. Make sure the syndrome is named possessively “D’Souza’s Syndrome” or else he’ll claim credit for its discovery.

    3. They have some evidence for that. The two main pieces of evidence are the large number of Southern states that didn’t flip red until long after Nixon resigned, and the fact that very few politicians switched parties. Robert Byrd stayed put for example, happily using the N-word on television as the eldest Democrat senator until he died in office around 2010. But icky Strom Thurmond did switch if memory serves.

      I don’t need to believe in an ideology swap (which seems rather incredible to me) to believe the racism and bigotry I see and personally experience today in right wing comment sections on youtube and elsewhere.

      1. I believe Nixon won the Deep South in 1972 by large percentages – it was a landslide. Also, I believe the focus was on voters who switched, not the politicians.

          1. I lived through it, so I can recall the details. The statement made by Tsc Admin was that Southern states did not “flip red” until long after Nixon resigned. The 1972 election contradicts this. As for your point, contrast 1972 with Johnson’s landslide in 1964 and evaluate that for yourself.

          2. Judging by 1964 and 1968 elections, we can say that Southern votes have been volatile and fluctuating. In 1964, Johnson won Texas and Florida, but Goldwater 5 other South eastern states. 1968 was quite a fruit salad of ideas and political ideologies, though. Besides the Vietnam War, you had George Wallace who now was member of a segregationist American Independent Party and won in those same states. That shows that by that time, the South was pretty much racist but its racistness was neither reflected in the Republican nor in the Democratic Parties.

          3. The 1964 election was the root of the Southern Strategy. Along with his own state, Goldwater won five solidly democratic states in the South – and nothing else. By 1972, Nixon was winning all those states by 70% margins or more. Since like D’Souza you seem to have your own special version of history, I’ll leave you to it.

          4. I know that there are people who like to connect Goldwater with white supremacist organizations, because he was publicly endorsed by KKK, but he had denounced them, kind of similar to what’s happening right now. Still, it was Wallace and his American Independents who truly demonstrated racist ideology mingling with politics, four years later. I’ve read somewhere that D’Souza was stating that it was Johnson and the Democrats who were the real racists. If that’s true, then it was either a spin, an urban myth, or a highly exaggerated claim.

          5. Yes I consider landslide blowout elections to be outliers. Winning every state says little about the North or the South.

      2. David is right, the strategy focused on voters, not the politicians. Kevin Phillips was credited and excoriated for laying it out in his 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority. The NYT Magazine did an article on Phillips in 1970 that’s almost as long as the book (kidding). Excerpts:

        “Most voters, he had found, still voted on the basis of ethnic or cultural enmities that could be graphed, predicted and exploited.”

        “Phillips contend[ed] that political success success goes to the party that cohesively holds together the largest numbers of ethnic prejudices, a circumstance which at last favors the Republicans.”

        “From now on, Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote, and they don’t need any more than that…The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are.”

    1. Yep. The Republican Party were social liberals back then. We all already know they were the good guys.

      Would that they still were.

  22. There were more republican slave owners in 1860 than there are true statements coming from D’Souza in 2019.

      1. On another note. Why are the comment threads so chaotic in terms of ease of finding direct responses to ones own comments. (Take a break for a moment) it is not a great set up and makes it very inefficient to have to rely on going back to the email to find the comments and responses.

        Can you all switch to a better platform to discuss further?

    1. Interesting. So D’Souza’s claim that the NAZI party used the Jim Crow laws developed by Democrats in the South as the basis for their laws persecuting the Jews is false? Can you point me to a major historian who has refuted him on this point?

      1. I have no idea about that claim. Nor did I say anything about it. I think you really, really missed the point of what I was saying though.

        1. Really? You are claiming that D’Souza is a serial lier and false in nearly everything he says. Did I mis-understand your claim? I am asking about another historical claim that he makes that is very interesting. I would like to know if you have evidence that it is not true. Or if you can point to other statements he makes that are not true. A pithy saying travels far and often damages reputations more than the truth.

          1. Yes, I believe D’Souza is a serial liar. Warren’s blog here is full of examples.

            “Did I mis-understand your claim?”

            Very much so. In fact, you seem to be the only one who read it and didn’t understand what I was saying.

          2. “There were more republican slave owners in 1860 than there are true statements coming from D’Souza in 2019.” by which you mean that D’Souza is always counterfactual. You confirm my understanding “D’Souza is a serial liar.”

            So, in response to that claim I am asking about a specific claim D’Souza makes that could also be counterfactual and which he makes clear factual claims for. It is a fair test to see if he is always wrong or just in this case. Is he a lier or just wrong?

          3. Not “always wrong” but often enough, and in ways that suggest his falsehoods are deliberate as an attempt to promote his anti-democrat/pro-republican agenda.

            “Is he a lier or just wrong?”

            Given his history, the manner in which he presents incorrect statements and his response (or lack thereof) to critics (ex. see Kevin Kruse’s twitter feed who point out his falsehoods, I would say he is a liar.

          4. Ken – Wait, was he also lying about only 2 Dixiecrats switching parties? Or are you perpetrating a democrat lie when you say ” the parties realigned”? I never could understand how anyone could believe that one day all the racist joined the party they hated the most… it’s illogical, which is why democrats believe it.

          5. I think the realignment was more among the voters. Also, “democrat” is a noun, not an adjective.

          6. “was he also lying about only 2 Dixiecrats switching parties?”

            If he claimed that he was definitely lying.

            Kevin Kruse has a list of a 30 politicians that switched.

            As well as other info about the realignment of the south after Johnson’s “Southern Strategy”

          7. “There were more republican slave owners in 1860 than there are true statements coming from D’Souza in 2019.” by which you mean that D’Souza is always counterfactual. You confirm my understanding “D’Souza is a serial liar.”

            So, in response to that claim I am asking about a specific claim D’Souza makes that could also be counterfactual and which he makes clear factual claims for. It is a fair test to see if he is always wrong or just in this case. Is he a lier or just wrong?

          8. Yes, I believe D’Souza is a serial liar. Warren’s blog here is full of examples.

            “Did I mis-understand your claim?”

            Very much so. In fact, you seem to be the only one who read it and didn’t understand what I was saying.

        2. Really? You are claiming that D’Souza is a serial lier and false in nearly everything he says. Did I mis-understand your claim? I am asking about another historical claim that he makes that is very interesting. I would like to know if you have evidence that it is not true. Or if you can point to other statements he makes that are not true. A pithy saying travels far and often damages reputations more than the truth.

  23. Thank you Dr. Throckmorton for documenting D’Souza’s continuing legacy of lies and deception.

  24. D’Souza. NeverTrumpers. The list of people who have to desperately cling to a narative despite the facts is long and disheartening.

      1. Nooooooooo… like many Conservatives, he’s reversed course on everything he ever said about character during other presidencies and supports Trump. I was just saying that hardcore NeverTrumpers also make claim after claim and never own up to it when what they say turns out to be objectively false (Trump called Nazis “very fine people”, Trump colluded with the Russians in this way or that way, etc). I don’t support Trump, but I also do not understand people who act like he is the worst person since Hitler. He’s Donald Trump, and he acts just about exactly how you should expect.

        1. Thank you. There’s so little nuanced thinking on the internet these days – it’s a breath of fresh air.

        2. He’s Donald Trump, and he acts just about exactly how you should expect.

          That’s true. He is Donald Trump and he does act exactly like you expect DT to act. The problem is, about 60% of Americans believe that’s not how a President should act. (And by the way, you’re the only person I hear claiming that Trump did NOT call the neo-Nazis very fine people, so ‘objectively false’ isn’t exactly objective in this case.)

          1. Sigh. I weighed that can for awhile and hoped that offsetting it with parentheses would diminish the heat. We’ll see. Sigh again.

          2. Before his ‘very fine people’ remark, Trump told the gathered press countless times that he had wanted to get his facts straight before speaking. Trump is famously not acquainted with facts.

            His claim that there were “very fine people” on both sides is based on non-facts; that this rally was planned for the rightwing to protest the statue’s removal. Instead, it was planned by white supremacists and nationalists. Had he done his homework like everyone else, he would have known that the Alt Knights, KKK, “3% Risen”, and various Militia groups planned on attending (police affidavit). This was verified the night before during the torchlit rally and Neo-Nazi chants. IOW, the protesters were all Neo-Nazi types and not just innocent people trying to preserve history and this was known before and after the protest. The governor even warned people the day before through the press.

            So, again, the people he called “very fine” were not at the rally, and almost all sentient human beings understand this, including the people in your video.

          3. No you are wrong there. The people he called “very fine” WERE at the rally. the people Trump (and his mouthpieces) claimed he meant after saying it, were not at the rally.

          4. You’re right, ken. I’m hoping this was the last teachable moment I’ll need on this subject. Anytime Trump speaks he leaves so many loopholes and ambiguity that he can turn his words into whatever he wants later. If there’s one thing Trump is competent in, it’s this.

          5. Yes, but the problem is not that the press has continually said that Donald Trump was mistaken about the origins and composition of the rally. The problem is that both the press and others continue (sometimes to this day) to insist that Trump deliberately called white supremacists and neo-nazis “very fine people” out of some sort of misplaced sympathy for them, including Dr. Throckmorton. This assertion could not be more at odds with the actual transcript, in which Trump explicitly and unequivocally denounced the racist factions.

            Additionally, your own assertion that “the protesters were all Neo-Nazi types” is demonstrably incorrect. Whatever the other facts happen to be, it does not change the documented fact that other people (including black and gay persons) were present at the rally for other reasons and that they were physically attacked by Antifa-types.

            That Trump is rarely precise or accurate about particulars is demonstrable. But in this case, he explicitly countered the very story that the press and people like Joe Biden have continued to relay. It is plainly a false claim and a complete lie that he called racists “very fine people”.

  25. That kind of blanket claim Souza made, in a country of 35 million people, debunks itself anyway. But I’m glad someone did it formally.

    The Republicans had a radically progressive (as in, actively promoting interracial marriage for national health benefits) faction but Souza is making them out to be the entirety rather than the fringe that they were.

  26. I have to wonder just how many people still take D’Souza seriously. His time was a while ago, and the years have not been kind to him (appropriately). He’s tarnished goods. And I doubt the more rabid racists of the internet hinterlands find him their kind of rabblerouser. Plus, he’s a grubby little foreigner, so there’s that.

  27. Oh, please. D’Souza made an easily-refutable claim, which was promptly refuted–meaning that it was demonstrably false. He refuses to stop making the claim, in spite of the clear evidence against it. This is not how historians work. History is not immutable-our understanding changes as new facts come to light through research. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

    1. The facts are that some people who went to Republican conventions owned slaves. Whether those people were Republicans by virtue of that fact is an interpretation which makes it an opinion. It’s an opinion I agree with, for now, but I bet I can do massive damage to the validity of that proxy measure by counting names listed in both Republican and Democrat convention records.

      I have no motivation to do so though since I agree with the interpretation that Republicans owned slaves. I don’t find a meaningful likelihood using common sense that it could be otherwise.

      This goes beyond fact versus opinion though. An academic has a responsibility to have well-founded opinions too. Otherwise what’s the point of being an academic? I would expect him to either have slam dunk proof that no Republicans owned slaves, which is not feasible, or else to explain each time he makes that claim how unfounded it is and that it’s just his hypothesis.

      In the profession I was educated in, if you have a minority view on the law or worse – a purely academic one with no professional acceptance, you state that fact clearly. If you don’t, you literally go to jail, and that may be the nicest thing that happens to you.

      1. These were delegates to the convention so by definition they were Republicans.

        1. Sure. But if we find the same names on both party lists, it might make any comparison of slaveholder lists to delegate lists unconvincing.

          I mean just a quick example off the top of my head – did President George Bush serve three terms? Or were there two presidents named George Bush? Or three? How many times was John Adams president?

          There were 35 million people in the country at the time. What is the probability of a name collision and would it explain the ten Republicans?

          I would be shocked if no Republicans owned slaves. I think the reasoning in this article is sound and convincing, and D’Souza is a quack who isn’t even interested in the truth here. But it is not a matter of pure fact. There are logical inferences in it that reasonable minds need not follow, and when reasonable minds can disagree about a thing the matter is one of opinion.

          This doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Academics should have quality opinions based on the best research. D’Souza does not.

          1. I found a similar lack of overlap between some names in the Twitter feed and the names in the Republican convention proceedings. The Robert Cook they mention as a Republican delegate from Kentucky was not a delegate according to the convention proceedings. If he was, he was for Illinois. Which would mess up the match to slave records which were by state.

            https://books.google.com/books?id=AzoPAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA40q=Cook#v=onepage&q=Cook&f=false

            John Underwood, however, I confirmed yet again.

          2. Would you be comfortable editing your comment to “Democratic”–I notice the other version is often used to belittle people of that leaning in this millennium.

        2. I just went the extra step and proved at least one Republican owned slaves. John Underwood of Prince William County was a GOP delegate for Prince William County, was a registered slave owner, and in the census of 1860 there was only one John Underwood in the county (which surprised me). He was 32 years old at the time.

          This is still a chain of inferences and thus a debatable matter, but probably not reasonably debatable. The other names in the article source are exponentially less likely to have collisions than this one.

          This can still be attacked by proving undercounting in the census and such, but at this point you could get a murder conviction.

      2. Considering that politics in the 1860s was even more polarized than it is today, it would be difficult to believe that Democrats would serve as delegates to the Republican convention. Counting names duplicated at both conventions would be interesting, and a real service to history, if it hasn’t been done already. If there were men who attended both, then the fighting could commence over which party they actually belonged to.

        1. Even if they belonged to both parties, I would say that still makes a slave holder a Republican (and a Democrat). But I’m not one who needs convincing, of course.

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