Dinesh DSouza

Early life and career

D'Souza was born in Bombay in 1961. His parents were Roman Catholics from the state of Goa in Western India, where his father was an executive of Johnson & Johnson and his mother was a housewife. D'Souza attended the Jesuit St. Stanislaus High School in Bombay. He graduated in 1976 and completed his 11th and 12th years at Sydenham College, also in Bombay. In 1978, D'Souza traveled to the United States under the Rotary Youth Exchange and attended the local public school in Patagonia, Arizona. He went on to matriculate at Dartmouth College, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1983 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. While at Dartmouth, D'Souza wrote for The Dartmouth Review, an independent publication, not affiliated with Dartmouth College, subsidized by alumni and edited by students.

After graduating from Dartmouth, D'Souza became the editor of a monthly journal called The Prospect, a publication financed by a group of Princeton University alumni. The paper and its writers ignited much controversy during D'Souza's editorship by, among other things, criticizing the college's affirmative action policies.

From 1985 to 1987, D'Souza was a contributing editor of Policy Review, a journal then published by The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. In a September 1985 article "The Bishops as Pawns," D'Souza theorized that Catholic bishops in the United States were being manipulated by American liberals in agreeing to oppose the U.S. military buildup and use of power abroad when, D'Souza believed, they knew very little about these subjects to which they were lending their religious credibility:

Interviews with these bishops suggest that they know little or nothing about the ideas and proposals to which they are putting their signature and lending their religious authority. The bishops are unfamiliar with existing defense and economic programs, unable to identify even in general terms the Soviet military capability, ignorant of roughly how much of the budget currently goes to defense, unclear about how much should be reallocated to social programs, and innocent of the most basic concepts underlying the intelligent layman's discussion of these questions.

He was a policy adviser in the administration of President Ronald Reagan between 1987 and 1988.

In 1991, D'Souza became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

President of The King's College

In August 2010, D'Souza was named president of The King's College, a Christian liberal arts college then housed in the Empire State Building in Manhattan. The college relocated to a larger space in Fall 2012, next door to the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan's financial district. On October 18, 2012, D'Souza resigned his post at The King's College following a press report that he had shared a hotel room at a Christian conference with a woman whom he introduced as his fiancee, despite still being married to his wife of twenty years. D'Souza called the report vicious and "worthy of Christian condemnation."

Political criticism

D'Souza defines conservatism in the American sense as "conserving the principles of the American Revolution." In Letters to a Young Conservative, written as an introduction to conservative ideas for youth, D'Souza argues that it is a blend of classical liberalism and ancient virtue, in particular, "the belief that there are moral standards in the universe and that living up to them is the best way to have a full and happy life." He also argues against what he calls the modern liberal belief that "human nature is intrinsically good," and thus that "the great conflicts in the world... arise out of terrible misunderstandings that can be corrected through ongoing conversation and through the mediation of the United Nations."

D'Souza opposes government policies based on affirmative action and social welfare. In the book Illiberal Education, D'Souza argued that intolerance of conservative views is common at many universities. He has attributed many modern social problems to what he calls the "cultural left." In his 2007 book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 he wrote that:

The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.... The cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the non-profit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.

In a review of D'Souza's 2003 book, What's So Great About America, economist Thomas Sowell wrote that D'Souza's book exposed the fallacies and hypocrisies of various criticisms of the United States by the Islamic world, "domestic multiculturalist cults," those who seek reparations for slavery, and the worldwide intelligentsia. According to Sowell: "Perhaps it takes somebody from outside to truly appreciate all the blessings that too many native-born Americans take for granted. D'Souza understands how rare—sometimes unique—these blessings are."

Sowell also notes that D'Souza takes this a step further and challenges the notion that all world cultures are equal:

D’Souza challenges one of the central premises of today’s intelligentsia: The equality of all cultures. "If one begins with the multicultural premise that all cultures are equal, then the world as it is makes very little sense," he says. Some cultures have completely outperformed others in providing the things that all people seek—health, food, housing, security, and the amenities of life.

D'Souza has also been critical of feminism:

The feminist error was to embrace the value of the workplace as greater than the value of the home. Feminism has endorsed the public sphere as inherently more constitutive of women's worth than the private sphere. Feminists have established as their criterion of success and self-worth an equal representation with men at the top of the career ladder. The consequence of this feminist scale of values is a terrible and unjust devaluation of women who work at home.

In a 2003 interview, he said same-sex marriage did not work:

Marriage does not civilize men. Women do. This point is even evident in the gay community: It helps to explain why lesbians are generally much better than male homosexuals in sustaining long-term relationships. The reason that society privileges marriage and gives it a special legal status is because marriage is the only known incubator for the raising of children.

D'Souza has also been labeled a neoconservative.

Christianity and religion

D'Souza attended the evangelical church Calvary Chapel from 2000 at least until 2010. D'Souza says that his Catholic background is important to him, but he is also comfortable with Protestant Reformation theology; he identifies as a nondenominational Christian. He often writes and discusses Christian apologetics and has debated against prominent atheists and critics of Christianity, including Dan Barker, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Singer, Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, David Silverman, and Bart D. Ehrman on religious and moral issues.

In a Christian Science Monitor article, he wrote, "The moral teachings of Jesus provide no support for—indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to—the historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity." D'Souza often speaks out against atheism, nonbelief, and secularism. He elaborated his views in his 2007 book, What's so Great about Christianity. In 2009, he published Life After Death: The Evidence, which attempts to use scientific and philosophical arguments to support the concept of the afterlife. He also relies on theoretical physics to support the concept of God and the anthropic principle and to refute atheist arguments. In 2012, D'Souza published Godforsaken, which addresses questions of how a benevolent God could allow evil and suffering in the world.

D'Souza posits that "living creatures are the products of intelligent design," but he is not a proponent of the intelligent design movement, as he does not consider it to be a satisfactory alternative to the theory of evolution by natural selection. He argues that belief in the afterlife and in a Supreme Being are reasonable conclusions given the evidence available, and that atheists have misrepresented the case for Christianity on many fronts.

In a Catholic Education Resource Center article, he shared his belief on the separation of church and state: "Groups like the ACLU, with the acquiescence if not collusion of the courts, are actively promoting a jurisprudence of anti-religious discrimination. In a way the Supreme Court has distorted the Constitution to make religious believers of all faiths into second-class citizens." D'Souza argues that current jurisprudence unfairly promotes secularism. More clearly, D'Souza states,

"Today courts wrongly interpret separation of church and state to mean that religion has no place in the public arena, or that morality derived from religion should not be permitted to shape our laws. Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression. Secularists want to empty the public square of religion and religious-based morality so they can monopolize the shared space of society with their own views."

D'Souza has also commented on Islam. He stated in 2007, "I've been studying radical Islamic thought—specifically, the thinkers who have influenced contemporary radical Muslims. When you read their work, you find that there are no denunciations of modernity, no condemnations of science, no condemnations of freedom. In fact, their whole argument seems to be that the United States—through our support of secular dictators in the region—is denying Muslims freedom and control over their own destiny." He has debated Serge Trifkovic and Robert Spencer, who both deem Islam "inherently aggressive, racist, violent, and intolerant." He has labelled Spencer an "Islamophobe" and "an effective polemicist" in his writings on Islam.

Colonialism

In the second chapter of What's So Great About America, D'Souza argues that while colonialism was terrible, it had the unintended consequence of lifting third world countries up to Western civilization. D'Souza writes, "I realize that in saying these things I am opening the door for my critics, and the incorrigible enemies of the West, to say that I am justifying colonialism... This is the purest nonsense. What I am doing is pointing out a historical fact: despite the corrupt and self-serving motives of [its] practitioners... colonialism... proved to be the mechanism that brought millions of nonwhite people into the orbit of Western freedom." He holds up the European colonization of India as an example, pointing out that in the long run colonization turned out to be a good thing for India, because it introduced Western law, universities, infrastructure, and the like, while effectively ending human sacrifice, the practice of Sati, and other "charming indigenous customs".

Abu Ghraib

D'Souza has argued the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal was a result of "the sexual immodesty of liberal America." He further asserted that the conditions of prisoners at Abu Ghraib "are comparable to the accommodations in mid-level Middle Eastern hotels."

Media appearances

D'Souza has appeared on numerous national television networks and programs. Six days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, D'Souza appeared on Politically Incorrect hosted by Bill Maher. He disputed the assertion that terrorists were cowards by saying, "Look at what they did. You have a whole bunch of guys who were willing to give their life; none of them backed out. All of them slammed themselves into pieces of concrete. These are warriors." Maher agreed with D'Souza's comments and said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away."

During an interview on The Colbert Report on January 16, 2007, while promoting his book The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D'Souza maintained that liberals had some responsibility for the September 11 attacks. He said liberals' "penchant for interference" had a decided effect in convincing the Carter administration to withdraw support from the Shah, which brought on Muslim fundamentalists control of the Iranian government. He also said that the distorted representation of American culture on television is one source of resentment of the United States by Muslims worldwide. D'Souza believes that traditional Muslims are not too different from traditional Jews and Christians in America. Towards the end of the interview, he admitted that he and Islamic militants share some of the same negative beliefs about liberal Americans.

Authorship

In early 2007, D'Souza published The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11, in which he argues that the American cultural left was in large part responsible for the Muslim anger that led to the September 11 attacks. He argues that Muslims do not hate America because of its freedom and democracy, but because they perceive America to be imposing its moral depravity (support for sexual licentiousness) on the world. D'Souza's conclusion is that, "[t]he [George W.] Bush administration and the conservatives must stop promoting American popular culture because it is producing a blowback of Muslim rage. With a few exceptions, the right should not bother to defend American movies, music, and television. From the point of view of traditional values, they are indefensible. Moreover, why should the right stand up for the left's debased values? Why should our people defend their America? Rather, American conservatives should join the Muslims and others in condemning the global moral degeneracy that is produced by liberal values." The book was criticized in major American newspapers and magazines and described as, among other things, "the worst nonfiction book about terrorism published by a major house since 9/11" and "a national disgrace". D'Souza's book caused a controversy in the conservative movement. His conservative critics widely mocked his thesis that the cultural left was responsible for 9/11. In response, D'Souza posted a 6,500-word essay on National Review Online, and NRO subsequently published a litany of responses from conservative authors who accused D'Souza of character assassination, elitism and pseudo-intellectualism.

Also in the summer of 2017, D'Souza published a book called The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left. Ironically, the book was published two weeks before Republican President Donald Trump referred to participants in a violent neo-Nazi rally in Virginia as "very fine people." D'Souza explained the awkward timing by repeating a rumor that one of the rally's organizers was "an Obama guy."

His Christian apologetics books, What's So Great About Christianity and Life After Death: The Evidence, were both on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Forbes article and The Roots of Obama's Rage

At the conclusion of a September 2010 opinion article in Forbes about President Barack Obama, titled "How Obama Thinks", D'Souza wrote:

[T]rapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.

D'Souza's book The Roots of Obama's Rage, of which the Forbes article was a condensed version, was published in September 2010 by Regnery Publishing. The book presents his interpretation of President Obama's past and how it formed his beliefs; it was on The New York Times Best Seller list for four weeks in October–November 2010. D'Souza appeared on the Glenn Beck Program in September 2010 to discuss some of his theories.

Several commentators strongly disputed the assertions about Obama, made in the book and article, including Media Matters for America, which pointed out what it claimed were errors in an article entitled "The Roots of Obama's Rage rooted in lies". Ryan Chittum, in an article in the Columbia Journalism Review, described the Forbes article as "a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia … the worst kind of smear journalism—a singularly disgusting work".

Some conservative publications criticized D'Souza's allegations. In "Obama, Anticolonial Hegemonist?", Daniel Larison of The American Conservative states, "Dinesh D'Souza has authored what may possibly be the most ridiculous piece of Obama analysis yet written... All in all, D'Souza's article reads like a bad conspiracy theory." Larison criticizes D'Souza's suggestion that Obama is anti-business, citing a lack of evidence.

Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard wrote, "D'Souza always sees absence of evidence as evidence of something or other ... There is, indeed, a name for the beliefs that motivate President Obama, but it's not anticolonialism; it's not even socialism. It's liberalism!" The magazine published D'Souza's letter, in which he expressed surprise "at the petty, vindictive tone of Andrew Ferguson's review".

In late February 2017, students at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, stole more than two hundred flyers advertising D'Souza planned appearance at the university the first week of March. D'Souza called the protest "pathetic", and suggested the demonstrators "Come out and debate me In the best case you may win; in the worst, you'll learn something". Twin brothers Manfred and Jonah Wendt, co-founders of the student conservative group Tigers for Liberty, had passed around six hundred notices of D'Souza's visit to campus. Those returned by the protesters contained negative comments about D'Souza.

2016: Obama's America film

D'Souza wrote and co-directed the documentary polemical film 2016: Obama's America. Through interviews and reenactments, the film compares the similarities in the lives of D'Souza and President Barack Obama. D'Souza suggested that early influences on Obama affected the decisions he made as president. The film's tagline is "Love him or hate him, you don't know him." The film has been criticized on the grounds that what D'Souza claims to be an investigation of Obama includes considerable projection, speculation, and selective borrowing from Obama's autobiography, to prove D'Souza's own narrative. In a "Fact Check" of the film, the Associated Press found that D'Souza provided little or no evidence for most of his claims, noted that several allegations were factually false, and described the film's central thesis as "almost entirely subjective and a logical stretch at best."

After a limited release beginning July 13, 2012, the film expanded to over one thousand theaters in late August 2012, and reached more than two thousand theaters before the end of September 2012, eventually grossing more than $33.4 million. It is the fifth highest-grossing documentary in the United States during the last four decades, and the second highest-grossing political documentary.

The Obama administration described the film as "an insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the president". Later, when D'Souza was indicted for violating election law, D'Souza and his co-producers alleged that he was selectively prosecuted, and that the indictment was politically motivated retribution for the success of the anti-Obama film.

America: Imagine the World Without Her

In March 2013, D'Souza announced work on a documentary film titled America: Imagine the World Without Her for release in 2014. America was marketed to political conservatives and through Christian marketing firms. In America, D'Souza seeks to portray United States history in a more positive light in contrast to perceived liberal critiques of its history, including the theft of Native American and Mexican lands, black slavery, contemporary foreign policy, and its capitalist system. The Washington Times states that D'Souza is saying that Americans no longer have past heroes like Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan, but "we do have us” in “our struggle for the restoration of America.”

Lions Gate Entertainment released America in three theaters on June 27, 2014 and expanded its distribution on the weekend of the U.S. holiday Independence Day on July 4, 2014. CinemaScore reported that the opening-weekend audiences gave the film an "A+" grade. The film grossed $14.4 million, which made it the highest-grossing documentary in the United States in 2014.

The film review website Metacritic surveyed 11 movie critics and assessed 10 reviews as negative and 1 as mixed, with none being positive. It gave an aggregate score of 15 out of 100, which indicates "overwhelming dislike". The similar website Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 24 critics and, categorizing the reviews as positive or negative, assessed 22 as negative and 2 as positive. Of the 24 reviews, it determined an average rating of 2.9 out of 10. The website gave the film an overall score of 8% and said of the consensus, "Passionate but poorly constructed, America preaches to the choir." The Hollywood Reporter's Paul Bond said the film performed well in its limited theatrical release, "overcoming several negative reviews in the mainstream media". Bond reported, "Conservatives... seem thrilled with the movie."

John Fund of National Review said the documentary was a response to U.S. progressive critique of the country, "D'Souza's film and his accompanying book are a no-holds-barred assault on the contemporary doctrine of political correctness." Fund said D'Souza's message was "deeply pessimistic" but concluded, "Most people will leave the theater with a more optimistic conclusion: Much of the criticism of America taught in the nation’s schools is easily refuted, America is worth saving, and we have the tools to do so in our DNA, just waiting to be harnessed." National Review's Jay Nordlinger said, "Dinesh is the anti-Moore: taking to the big screen to press conservative points... The shame narrators (let’s call them) focus on maybe 20 percent of the American story. Dinesh simply puts the other 80 percent back in." In a second article, Jay Nordlinger said, "The second movie confirms for me that one of Dinesh's great advantages is that he is absolutely clear-eyed about the Third World. While liberal Americans romanticize it, he has lived it."

Book version

D'Souza wrote the book America: Imagine the World Without Her, on which the film is based. When the warehouse club Costco pulled the book from its shelves shortly before the film's release, conservative media and fans on social media criticized the move. Costco said it pulled the book due to low sales. D'Souza disputed the explanation, saying the book had only been out a few weeks and had surged to #1 on Amazon.com, while Costco stocked hundreds of much lower-selling books. He and other conservatives asserted it was pulled because one of Costco's co-founders, James Sinegal, supported Obama's politics. Costco reordered the book and cited the documentary's release and related interest for the reorder.

Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party

On July 25, 2016, D'Souza released the documentary film Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party. The film criticizes the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive (and ultimate) Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2016.

The film was universally panned by professional film critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 4%, based on 27 professional reviews, with an average rating of 1.7/10. The critics consensus on the site reads, "Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party finds Dinesh D'Souza once again preaching to the right-wing choir—albeit less effectively than ever." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 2 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". The film has the fifth lowest score of all films on the site. Peter Sobczynski wrote, “Hillary's America may well be the single dumbest documentary that I have ever seen in my life." A July 2016 review in Variety characterized D'Souza as "a right-wing conspiracy wingnut, the kind of “thinker” who takes off from Barack Obama birther theories and just keeps going, spinning out a web of comic-book liberal evil."

Other critics and figures viewed the film positively. John Fund of the National Review stated that "[the film] is over the top in places and definitely selective, but the troubling facts are accurate and extensively documented in the D’Souza book that accompanies the movie." He also called the film "intensely patriotic". On July 23, 2016, Donald Trump, who was then running as the Republican presidential nominee against Clinton, called on supporters to see the film.

On January 23, 2017 the film was nominated for five Razzies including: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Dinesh D'Souza), Worst Actress (Becky Turner), Worst Director (Dinesh D'Souza and Bruce Schooley), and Worst Screenplay. In response to the Razzie nominations, D'Souza stated that he was "actually quite honored" and called the nominations "petty revenge" in response to Trump's election victory, also stating that "the film might have played an important role in the election." After "winning" four of the five possible Razzies, D'Souza continued to be "a good sport" and repeated his view that the nominations were an upset response to Trump's election victory.

Election campaign finance conviction

On January 24, 2014, D'Souza was arraigned in a Manhattan federal court on charges of making $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the New York Senate campaign of Wendy Long, and for causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission.

In May 2014, D'Souza pleaded guilty to one felony count of making illegal contributions in the names of others. In September 2014, the court sentenced D'Souza to five years probation, eight months in a halfway house (referred to as a "community confinement center") and a $30,000 fine.

D'Souza's attorney had argued his client "did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever" and described the incident as "at most...an act of misguided friendship". His co-producers alleged that the indictment was politically motivated retribution for the success of his 2012 movie 2016: Obama's America.

D'Souza's claim of selective prosecution received support from some conservative media and commentators. According to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz: "The idea of charging him with a felony for this doesn't sound like a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.... I can't help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something to do with it.... It smacks of selective prosecution." He went on to say such alleged campaign violations are common in politics. In May, United States District Judge Richard M. Berman rejected that contention, stating, "The court concludes the defendant has respectfully submitted no evidence he was selectively prosecuted."

Personal life

In 1992, D'Souza married Dixie Brubaker, whom he first met when he worked in Washington, D.C. They have one daughter, born in 1995. In his book Life After Death: The Evidence, D'Souza stated that Dixie had a near-death experience at the age of 19. The couple lived together in California until D'Souza moved to New York as president of King's College. He maintained a residence near San Diego, where his wife and daughter remained.

In an October 16, 2012, article in World Magazine, author Warren Cole Smith reported on D'Souza's activities after a September 28 talk that year in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Smith said D'Souza, who was married at the time, checked into a hotel with another woman and left with her the following day. In his rebuttal, D'Souza said that he and his wife had separated. He confirmed that he had been engaged to Denise Odie Joseph—herself married to Louis Joseph. After an investigation by officials at King's College, D'Souza stated that he had suspended his engagement to Ms. Joseph.

After D'Souza's engagement became public, the trustees of the King's College announced after meeting on October 17, 2012, that D'Souza had resigned his position as president of the university "to attend to his personal and family needs". Smith noted that D'Souza filed for divorce on the date of Smith's inquiry. D'Souza and Brubaker subsequently divorced.

D'Souza married Deborah Fancher, a conservative political activist and mother of two, on March 19, 2016. The wedding was held near San Diego, California with Pastor Rafael Cruz, father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), officiating. Fancher, 50, immigrated from Venezuela at age ten.

Books

Books authored by D'Souza include:

Film