Dinesh D’Souza suggests knocking down statues of former U.S. presidents Wilson, FDR and LBJ

Dinesh D’Souza proposed toppling statues of several former Democratic presidents Friday in response to monuments across the country coming down following George Floyd’s killing.

Mr. D’Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, made the suggestion on social media as controversial statues continue to come down from coast-to-coast amid the unrest sparked by Floyd’s racially charged killing month.

“The only answer to them knocking down our statues (Columbus, Washington, Lincoln) is for us to knock down their statues. I recommend three notorious racists: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ,” Mr. D’Souza posted on Twitter. “If we don’t do to them what they are doing to us, they will never stop.”

Mr. D’Souza, 59, seemed to be referring to statues of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and former U.S. Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln recently targeted amid the unrest. Monuments to Columbus and Washington have been among the statues toppled in several cities since Floyd’s death, while calls have swelled during that span for a controversial statue of Lincoln to be removed from parks in Boston and Washington, D.C.

In subsequent posts, Mr. D’Souza outlined his case for retaliating by knocking down statues of former Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson. He argued FDR “placated racists” and crafted his New Deal programs to exclude Blacks, while he called LBJ a notorious racist and bigot.

Mr. D’Souza did not tweet further about Wilson, but his screening of the 1915 film “Birth of a Nation” in the White House has often been cited as evidence of that president’s racist views.

Floyd, a black man, was killed last month while being restrained by members of the Minneapolis Police Department, triggering nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality that been accompanied in some major cities by the toppling of controversial monuments and statues.

Several monuments to the Confederacy, which infamously fought against the U.S. during the American Civil War and lost, have been dismantled or vandalized following Floyd’s death, including Confederate statues toppled Friday night in both Raleigh, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.

Across the country, meanwhile, protesters in San Francisco knocked down statues Friday evening of former President Ulysses S. Grant, who fought for the Union Army against the Confederacy during the Civil War, as well as one honoring Junípero Serra, an eighteenth-century Franciscan missionary and Catholic saint, and one honoring Francis Scott Key, author of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

“Why is the government and the GOP standing by helplessly while the Left desecrates the legacy of Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, even the Christian missions?” Mr. D’Souza tweeted Saturday. “Do we need a revival of private militias to protect these monuments?”