Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that if he is re-elected, he would retaliate against the Democratic Party and government law enforcement agencies for any actions they may have taken against him and his allies. And this is a theme that has been taken up by at least some quarters of the MAGA movement. Attorney Mike Davis, for example, has proposed legislation that would allow Democratic Party leaders to be prosecuted for attempting to violate the constitutional freedoms of Americans.
Naturally, Democrats are screaming that Trump is threatening to attack his political opponents. I've heard this from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), and others. This accusation from them has no credibility or weight, because this is exactly what they've been doing for the past few years: They've surveilled, censored, targeted, persecuted, prosecuted, and jailed conservatives and Republicans who challenge and resist them.
The use of force in accordance with law is not morally equivalent to the use of force without law.
But what about the concerns expressed by some Republicans that Trump is simply seeking “revenge” and that this is all for himself?
It's worth pointing out that in old Westerns, revenge was never a bad motive. Revenge was always justified! The bad guys were so evil that the hero simply couldn't not kill them – not just beat them down and let them run out of town. And if this seems like a quaint 19th-century norm, it's not so quaint after all, given its acceptance by mid-20th-century movie audiences.
Is Trump supposed to simply turn the other cheek in the face of the hardships he has endured? It's worth remembering that Jesus himself did not always turn the other cheek. Consider his encounter with the high priest after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he was punched by one of the guards. Jesus doesn't say, “That was a good blow, now I'll give you another.” Rather, he says, “Why do you hit me?”
The moral question we face, one that MAGA has already answered, is whether it is right for us to do to them what they have done to us.
Certainly, this problem was unimaginable during the Reagan era. For example, Reagan or George H. W. Bush would never have dreamed of putting the film director Michael Moore in prison. But Jimmy Carter also would never have dreamed of putting a conservative film director like me in prison. In other words, the Reagan era didn't need to think about this solution because the problem didn't exist.
But there were black soldiers in the army during Abraham Lincoln's time. Early in the Civil War, the Union Army sent black soldiers for the first time. They were not many in number. The Civil War was a mostly white war. But there were some black soldiers, and the movie “Glory” commemorates their bravery.
However, the Confederacy was infuriated by the prospect of having to fight blacks, and leader Jefferson Davis issued a decree that any black Union soldiers captured by Confederate forces would be shot. This did not apply to white Union soldiers, who became ordinary prisoners of war. Black prisoners of war, however, faced a different fate.
Lincoln learned of this edict and, in one scene in my film where Lincoln is riding a train and engulfed in smoke, signed what historians call the Order of Retaliation in 1863. In effect, this order required the execution of one Confederate prisoner of war for every black Union soldier captured and killed by the Confederacy.
So why did Lincoln, a moderate, order such barbarism? Why did he do something that would be condemned today by the Geneva Convention and the laws of war? The reason is clear. Lincoln realized that he had to do to the Union soldiers what they had done to them, or they would never stop. And amazingly, when the Confederates found out about Lincoln's orders, they did stop, and Lincoln quickly rescinded them.
The lesson here is that it's not about revenge, it's about how to stop the left's tyrannical abuses.
Writing strongly worded op-eds or posting memes on social media won't help. Bullies and outlaws understand one language: power. This doesn't mean that Trump or the MAGA movement are calling for lawlessness; rather, they call for the full force of the law to hold outlaws accountable.
They send outlaws to prison to deter them from resorting to lawless means in the future and to deter other potential outlaws. And there is nothing immoral about this. Exercising force in the service of the law is not morally equivalent to exercising lawless force. If it were, then street cops would be morally equivalent to criminals.
Editor's note: This article is based on Dinesh D'Souza's new book, “Vindicating Trump,” published by Regnery. D'Souza's film of the same name opens nationwide on September 27. Buy tickets and pre-order the book at vindicatingtrump.com.
