CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio – Dinesh D’Souza, made famous for his books and movies about the Democratic Party and it politicians, visited Canal Winchester on Saturday. D’Souza was speaking at an event for Pastor Bobby Mitchell, a candidate for the soon-to-be-vacant 78th House District seat, currently held by term-limited Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville). D’Souza told those gathered that Mitchell reminded him of his personal hero, Frederick Douglass.
“This guy is the salt of the earth. I mean this guy is a patriot, somebody who loves this country. In fact as he was talking, my mind was actually flashing back to the guy who is, sort of my personal hero, in addition to Lincoln, Frederick Douglass.”
D’Souza expounded about his knowledge of Douglass. He talked about how Douglass was at first very bitter in America, having been enslaved in Maryland and run away.
“He saw the American founders having made a pact with slavery. So he made bitter speeches about this. But when he met Lincoln, he left that meeting quite shaken. And it was not because of anything Lincoln even said. But Douglass goes, ‘This was the first white man who treated me as a man.’ In other words, he didn’t see color, he only saw Frederick Douglass…[Douglass] realized that’s what it means to live in a race-free society.”
Douglass became, and remained, a lifelong Republican. D’Souza described him as a great champion of treating people as who they actually are instead of based upon appearance, much like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
In fact, Douglass became such a fan of the Republican Party that Dinesh shared a quote, “The Republican Party is the ship, and all else is the sea.”
He explained how, even though an abolitionist, Douglass realized the anti-slavery group would not be able to end slavery. Abolitionists actually burned the Constitution, claiming it was a pro-slavery document. Douglass began to realize it would take a war and the Union Army and the Republican Party.
D’Souza moved forward in history, talking briefing about the Democrats hypocrisy. “Today our situation is such that, it’s not a straight Republican-Democratic fight because we also have the media, and we have academia, and we have Hollywood. So if you’re running as a Republican, you often find yourself in this hostile territory in which you’ve got enemies who are not labeled as your enemies, but they’re actually out to do you harm.”
His point for Pastor Mitchell and the Republican Party was wrapped up in his conclusion: “They will hit you with things they will never hit your opponent with…They will apply standards to you that they’re not applying to everyone else. You just have to be ready for it.”
“So a Republican today has to be five times as good as the other guy. A Republican has to be battle tested and ready. I think that having the right values is critical, but one of things we’ve learned from Trump is that it’s important to have guts.”
“So here we are, I think, at a critical moment in our history. And here you are, jumping into a race for an open seat, and I think you bring all the right commitment and credentials. You’ve lived it. You’re not talking about drugs, you’ve counseled people who are in desperate straights. You’re not talking about Patriotism, you’ve served and fought for the country.”
“You’re the right guy and I can’t say how important it is also for our party to have some diversity…For the Republican party to be a majority party, we’ve got to reflect the fact that it is our American dream.”
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