2016: Reading Obama's Mind

About two thirds of the way through 2016: Obama’s America, film maker Dinesh D’Souza makes an admission.  I will paraphrase:  “You hear Obama the Muslim, Obama the Socialist.  Those don’t cut it.  I’m laying my card on the table.”   So while other straw man images of Obama suffer from lack of evidence, or in the case of Socialist, redefining Socialist to include most Americans (including his Republican opponent), D’ Souza presents confirmed facts about Obama’s life and adds his own speculation to validate the conservative storyline that Obama is trying to “destroy America.”

D’Souza’s theory is that Obama is implementing an anti-colonialist agenda.  This is subject that few Americans know much or think much about, but being from the former British colony of India, D’Souza is familiar with colonialism & anti-colonialism.  He educates the audience on the resentment some in the third-world feel toward Europe & America due to their histories of exploiting the third world for their natural resources.  This is a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-religious movement he explains.   

What does this have to do with Obama?  Well, his father was indeed from Kenya, another former British colony.  D’Souza interviews a couple of people with anti-colonialist leanings who said they knew Obama Sr.   In a dramatically filmed re-enactment from the book “Dreams from my Father” we see the younger Obama visiting his father’s grave while listening to Obama’s own voice (excepted form the audio version of the book) describing the catharsis he felt.  From this we are supposed to infer that Obama now shares whatever anti-Western views his father might have had, and that in his second term, he intends to end the era of American dominance in the world.  We even get a graphic of a “Muslim Curtain” reminiscent of the old cold-war films illustrating the “domino theory” of Communist infiltration.  What D’Souza does not explain is why Obama’s connection to Kenya and time living in Indonesia would make him an anti-western Marxist while his own childhood in India led him to become a conservative.   

When the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Healthcare Act came down, some conservative pundits asked “What was Justice Roberts thinking?”  Some even speculated he wanted to show that the Court wasn’t a rubber stamp for Republicans.   But anyone wanting to know what Roberts was thinking could simply download the PDF of the decision and read 200 pages of Robert’s thoughts on the topic.  If you want to know what Obama is really about, read and listen to his words, and look at his actual actions, not what people say about him, or see when they attempt to read his mind.