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racism
Trump's Depraved Racist Attack on the Obamas Matters Deeply and Must Be Condemned
That a popular pro-Trump account on X created this video and it has lived on that platform without consequence is disgusting in and of itself. But Trump — as our president, speaking in our voice — made it infinitely worse last night by promoting it to millions around the world.
Promoting a video that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as non-human primates isn’t a joke. It isn’t satire or an accident. It’s the oldest racist smear in the book, dressed up in a cheap meme and now blasted out by a man who once swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Normally I wouldn’t post such a disgusting, racist image that originated on Elon’s social media sewer, but it’s important for the historical record for Americans to see what the President of the United States reposted last night on his own site — as your and my representative — for the entire world to see. (Screengrab / Truth Social)
When the president of the United States does something like this, it doesn’t just insult two people. It tells a story about who, according to the most powerful man in the world, belongs in America and who doesn’t.
For centuries, racism in this country has relied on the lie that some people are less than human. That lie has been used to justify slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and mass incarceration.
It’s the lie that made it easier for people to look away while their neighbors were brutalized. It’s the lie that justifies ICE’s brutal, racist behavior. When Trump shares imagery that taps directly into that history, he’s not being edgy: he’s reopening wounds that never fully healed.
Pretending this doesn’t matter is how we normalize it and weaken our shared sense of humanity. And the end point of that is always disaster.
When the President of the United States signals that this kind of racism is acceptable, it gives permission to others. It tells the kid being harassed at school, the family being targeted by a hate group, and the voter being pushed out of the polling line that the cruelty they’re experiencing is justified. That it’s their own fault.
It tells the bullies and thugs of ICE as they do their “Kavanaugh Stops” — targeting people based on their race — that they’re on the right side of power.
This isn’t just about harm to minorities, although that harm is real and immediate. It’s about what happens to democracy itself when the presidency becomes a megaphone for dehumanization.
Democracy depends on the idea that we’re all political equals. Once you start suggesting that some Americans are animals, that idea collapses. It becomes easier to justify taking away voting rights, ignore court rulings, or shrug when violence follows hateful rhetoric.
I remember a time, during the era of Eisenhower and Kennedy, when the presidency stood as a kind of moral North Star. Even when presidents like Nixon and Clinton failed to live up to it, there was at least a shared understanding that the office itself mattered. That it should pull us together, not rip us apart.
Trump has spent years doing the opposite, from the 1970s when he was busted along with his father for refusing to rent to Black people to his recent use of words like “vermin” and “shitholes” to describe Hispanic and Black people and majority-Black countries. Last night’s post is another brutally clear example of Trump’s deep, lifelong racism.
What’s even more chilling is the silence from Republican leaders and elected officials. If you can’t bring yourself to condemn something this overtly racist, where exactly is your line?
Silence in moments like this isn’t neutrality: it’s complicity. It tells people of color in America, already dealing with the burden of centuries of institutional racism, that their pain is irrelevant and their dignity a plaything in the hands of white people.
I know some people will say we should ignore it, that reacting “just feeds the outrage machine.” Trump’s propaganda princess, Karoline Leavitt, tried to downplay it by telling reporters this morning:
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
But pretending this doesn’t matter is how we normalize it and weaken our shared sense of humanity. And the end point of that is always disaster.
As California Governor Gavin Newsome just posted:
“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
“Denounce” is a bare minimum. This country can do better. We’ve done better before, often after terrible struggle and sacrifice.
But we won’t get there by minimizing moments like this or waving them off as “just another Trump post.” We get there by calling it what it is, by standing up for one another as equals in our humanity, and by insisting that the presidency must reflect our highest ideals, not our ugliest instincts.
If this doesn’t provoke the 13 white billionaires in Trump’s cabinet — who would all instantly fire anybody in any of their companies who posted such an image on their company’s servers — to start 25th Amendment proceedings or endorse impeachment, it’ll tell us everything about who they are, too.
America is stronger when we recognize each other as fully human. The moment we let that slip, we all lose something precious.
Racist Trump Denounced for Sharing Vile Video Depicting Obamas as Monkeys
The outrage over the post was immediate, even as Trump's racism is well known and documented over many years.
"The most foundational racist idea is likening Black people to apes," said Howard University historian Ibram X. Kendi in a social media post. "Since humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor, racist ideas cast white people as the most evolved people and the furthest away on the evolutionary scale from apes. Racist ideas cast Black people as the least evolved people and the closest on the evolutionary scale to apes. Almost all racist ideas build on this foundational one expressed by Trump."
A screenshot of the video Trump shared:
Tom Jocelyn, senior fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security, predicted how Trump and his allies would defend his promotion of obvious racism.
"Let’s call out a game Trump and MAGA play," he wrote. "1. Trump posts, says or does something racist. 2. Some point out it’s racist. 3. Trump (with MAGA’s help) pretends to be the victim for being called a racist. MAGA stews in its imaginary grievances. 4. Rinse and repeat."
Mark Jacob, former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, called out the New York Times for writing that it was "unclear if Mr. Trump was aware" that the racist depiction of the Obamas "had been included in the video before he shared it."
"What the hell is the New York Times doing?" he asked. "In its article on Trump posting a video that included a clip of the Obamas as apes, NYT tries to help him come up with an excuse."
Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser under Obama, argued that Trump's post was yet another sign that he will be remembered as a deeply loathsome historical figure.
"Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures," he wrote, "while studying him as a stain on our history."
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