Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing filmmaker behind the documentary 2016: Obama’s America, tweeted a provocative message to this followers about what he’s thankful for this holiday season:
I am thankful this week when I remember that America is big enough and great enough to survive Grown-Up Trayvon in the White House!
D’Souza’s tweet is likely a reference to President Barack Obama’s impromptu remarks following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, in which he said the dead teen “could have been me 35 years ago.”
The conservative commentator was quickly lambasted for his remark.
“@DineshDSouza Trayvon was someone who was hunted down by a racist and shot… you disgusting pathetic little race baiting charlatan,” wrote one tweeter.
“@DineshDSouza [I]’m thankful that you got caught cheating on your wife and had to resign from your job in disgrace and lost all credibility,” countered another.
D’Souza was forced to leave the New York evangelical school King’s College last year after an extramarital affair was exposed.
His anti-Obama film 2016: Obama’s America did brisk business in select theaters in the fall of 2012 before falling off when it expanded. The film came under fire for its inclusion of the president’s estranged half-brother George in an interview which implied the Commander-in-Chief abandoned his African ancestors.
The film also attempted to prove that President Barack Obama has harbored anti-colonial views for decades.
“D’Souza’s Ivy League pedigree affords him a certain deference, but his theories are no less far-fetched and couched in the prevailing ethos of Obama as “different” and anti-American, based on his lineage,” wrote Mychal Denzel Smith for theGrio last summer.