Summaries

Synopsis

The film begins and ends with a comprehensive exploration of the real roots of fascism from Hitler to Gentile and Mussolini, who considered themselves progressives and uses recreations to show what policies these dictators were observing in the United States, which ones they emulated, and which political parties in the United States were responsible for and supporting of those policies.

Starting with the suicide death of Hitler for the main title sequence, Dinesh D'Souza then begins the movie with his youth in India, his curiosity about history, and moves to his love of America, asking if America is threatened by new movements such as AntiFa.

The premise of the film is that Democrats targeted Lincoln: He won a contested election. They went to war to defeat him. In the end, a Democrat assassinated him. Appearing in the movie as well as doing its narration, director Dinesh D'Souza suggests now that a similar target of the Democrats is President Trump and his supporters and asks if Trump can save the nation.

Through a series of interviews with experts on fascism, anti-fascism, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, visits to historic sites with dramatic recreations, including the decisions made to announce the revolution, how Margaret Sanger's Eugenics push for ethnic cleansing influenced the Reich's decisions how to determine and identify Jews, covers Mengele and the Nuremburg trials and then suggests the definition of Fascism and the Nazi Party was intentionally revised by progressives to make them appear to be right wing concepts. With the help of historians and experts on fascism, the filmmakers posit that, with its acts of violence, AntiFa is behaving more like the very fascist ideologies they claim to hate.

The movie asks, which is the party of the slave plantation? Which is the party that invented white supremacy? Which is the party that praised fascist dictators and shaped their genocidal policies and was in turn praised by them? Is fascism now institutionally embodied on the right or on the left? Director D'Souza interviews Alt-Right icon Richard Spencer who acknowledges he is a socialist and not a conservative Republican.

In its section on American slavery, Death of a Nation explains the roles of figures like Woodrow Wilson, Van Buren, and FDR and suggests that racism comes not from the conservative right but rather from Democrats and progressives on the left. The movie reminds the viewers which ideologies led to the election of Abraham Lincoln and which parties continued to fight for racial inequality, going so far as to create the KKK to ensure blacks didn't vote, and creating Jim Crow laws to keep them separate and unequal.

The filmmakers claim at the movie's conclusion that Trump, while not in the least like Abraham Lincoln the man, is facing an extremely similar resistance from the Left, starting with a narrowly won vote, continued attempts to unseat him and a rising tide of violence and resistance to keep him from perpetuating his vision for continuing American excellence.

There are two songs included in the movie. At a midpoint in the movie, O'America is sung by the director's wife Debbie D'Souza and the Battle Hymn of the Republic is the closing song, sung by Angela Primm and a gospel choir.