Editing Dinesh D'Souza (section)

====''The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left''====
In July 2017, D'Souza published ''The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left''. In the book, D'Souza asserts that the 2016 Democratic Party platform was similar to the platform of the [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]]. The statement received media attention in 2018 when repeated by [[Donald Trump Jr.]] [[PolitiFact]] gave the claim its "''Pants-on-Fire''" rating, noting that "only a small number of elements of the two platforms are clearly similar, and those are so uncontroversial that they appear in the Republican platform as well."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/aug/03/donald-trump-jr/did-nazi-platform-echo-democratic-platform-donald-/|title=Nazi platform did not echo today's Democratic platform|work=@politifact|access-date=August 4, 2018|language=en|archive-date=August 5, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805051235/https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/aug/03/donald-trump-jr/did-nazi-platform-echo-democratic-platform-donald-/|url-status=live}}</ref> Historians refuted D'Souza's assertion, with [[University of Maryland, Baltimore|University of Maryland]] historian and Barack Obama critic [[Jeffrey Herf]] saying, "There is not the slightest, tiny sliver in which this could be even somewhat accurate."<ref name=":0" /> In another review of the book, historian [[Nicole Hemmer]], then of the University of Virginia's [[Miller Center of Public Affairs]], wrote: "For a book about secret Nazis, ''The Big Lie'' is surprisingly dull ... ''The Big Lie'' thus adds little to the no-you're-the-fascist genre on the right".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hemmer |first=Nicole |date=August 1, 2017 |title=Ideology Out, Hucksterism In: The decline of Dinesh D'Souza mirrors that of the Republican Party. |url=https://www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2017-08-01/dinesh-dsouzas-the-big-lie-mirrors-the-decline-of-the-gop |access-date=May 30, 2022 |website=[[U.S. News & World Report]] |archive-date=May 31, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531105611/https://www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2017-08-01/dinesh-dsouzas-the-big-lie-mirrors-the-decline-of-the-gop |url-status=live }}</ref> ''New York Times'' columnist [[Ross Douthat]] criticized the book, saying it was a "plea-for-attention" by D'Souza, and that the author had "become a hack". Douthat further stated, "Because D'Souza has become a professional deceiver, what he adds are extraordinary elisions, sweeping calumnies and laughable leaps."<ref>{{Cite news|first=Ross|last=Douthat|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/opinion/sunday/conservatism-jeff-flake-dsouza.html|title=Right-Wing Books, Wrong Answers|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 2, 2017|access-date=September 28, 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928102947/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/opinion/sunday/conservatism-jeff-flake-dsouza.html|archive-date=September 28, 2017}}</ref>

In an article for ''[[The American Conservative]],'' historian and philosopher [[Paul Gottfried]], who has written extensively on the subject of fascism, harshly criticized a [[PragerU]] video hosted by D'Souza which maintained that fascism was a leftist ideology. D'Souza also maintained that Italian philosopher [[Giovanni Gentile]], who influenced Italian fascism, was a leftist, to which Gottfried noted that this contradicted the research by "almost all scholars of Gentile's work, from across the political spectrum, who view him, as I do in my study of fascism, as the most distinguished intellectual of the revolutionary right."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/right-wing-celebrities-play-fast-and-loose-with-history/|title=Right-wing Celebrities Play Fast and Loose With History|last=Gottfried|first=Paul|website=The American Conservative|date=December 27, 2017|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-27|archive-date=June 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615140225/https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/right-wing-celebrities-play-fast-and-loose-with-history/|url-status=live}}</ref>