Tom Perez, Chair of the Democratic National Committee and secretary of labor under Barack Obama, attacked Donald Trump Jr. over his assessment of Dinesh D’Souza’s just-premiered Death of a Nation documentary.
A major theme of D’Souza’s documentary is a rejection of the wide-spread association of the racism, National Socialism (Nazism), and fascism with the American political right and the purported similarities of aspects of these totalitarian ideologies and certain policies advocated by the Democratic Party today.
The president’s eldest son evidently found Death of a Nation’s thesis compelling.
“I’ve been out hearing the left talking about all these things ― fascism, Nazism on the right — and when you look at the actual history of how these things evolved, and when you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say, ‘Wait a minute, those two are really heavily aligned and, frankly, contrary to the right,’” Don Jr., discussing the documentary, said on One America News Network Thursday.
The remarks prompted an outpouring of condemnation from Democrats, prompting Don Jr. to double-down, reasserting his comparison of the Democrats’ and the National Socialist German Workers Party’s (Nazis’) economic agendas, pointing to an American left wherein banal comparisons of political opponents to Nazis is practically ubiquitous:
So the left spends the last 3 years falsely calling my entire family NAZI’s, but the second I point out the similarities between the economic platform of the National Socialists and the Democrat Party, they scream bloody murder. Here’s what I was referring to. #facts pic.twitter.com/kTmwG1NDO8
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 2, 2018
Not satisfied with this explanation, Perez tweeted, “This rhetoric is a shameful and irresponsible attempt to further divide our country. Our nation is better than this”:
This rhetoric is a shameful and irresponsible attempt to further divide our country. Our nation is better than this. https://t.co/YtSENO5cOu
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) August 3, 2018
Don Jr.’s camp was incensed by that what they saw as hypocrisy in Perez’s tack and quickly hit back. Andy Surabian, a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr., told Breitbart News:
Don’s comments were specifically referring to the similarities between the progressive economic platform of the National Socialist Party and the Democrat Party of today.
It’s rich that a man whose first official act as DNC Chairman was to appoint an anti-Semite like Keith Ellison as his Deputy and whose party routinely and falsely smears the president as “Hitler” would feign outrage over Don’s historically accurate statement.
Another close Donald Trump Jr. ally, Republican Strategist and pro-Israel activist Arthur Schwartz, was particularly upset about Perez’s remarks in light of his party’s behavior during the historic move of the American embassy to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem last year.
“Tom Perez is the chair of the Democrat Party that led a soft boycott of the dedication of the U.S. Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. He has no standing to attack Don Trump, Jr. on this issue,” he told Breitbart News. “While GOP lawmakers and other Americans were celebrating that historic event in Israel, Perez, vicious anti-Smite Keith Ellison and their cronies were back home orchestrating a campaign to defend Jew-hating Hamas terrorists that have sworn an oath to wipe Jews and Israel off the face of the planet. Sound familiar?”
Don Jr. himself followed up the spat with Perez with an exclusive Breitbart News Saturday radio interview with Breitbart News Washington Political Editor Matt Boyle, in which he again touched on the material from Death of a Nation. “Given what’s been [said] of all the members of the GOP — that we’re Nazis and fascists — I’m saying ‘I dunno.’ It seems quite different based on what I’m seeing. The people screaming those things clearly don’t have a good grasp of history and what it means to actually be a fascist.”
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