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truth social
Trump's Racist Post Made Friday a Difficult Day at My School
My students weren’t angry; they were frustrated. They’d been stripped of their dignity by their own president.
Feb 12, 2026
I teach 12th-grade English at an urban high school in upstate New York. The poverty rate here is high. And violent crime is a common occurrence. When people ask what I’ve learned from doing this job for 18 years, I tell them I’ve come to see how hard it is to be a Black or brown person in America. And the president is making that even harder, which in turn makes my job as an urban educator harder.
February 6, on his Truth Social platform, Donald Trump posted a 62-second clip of Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces imposed over the bodies of apes. As word of this got around school on Friday, multiple students of color came to me. They wanted to know—needed to know—if Trump’s “Truth” was real. I gave it to ‘em straight. Yes, the Commander-in-Chief had trafficked in one of the oldest, most-painful tropes against African Americans. These students weren’t angry. They were frustrated. They’d been stripped of their dignity by their own president. Friday was a very difficult day at my school.
Regarding the post, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
This Trumpian brand of race-baiting is nothing new. You might remember Trump’s opening salvo to the citizenry was Birtherism. To enter political life by asserting Barack Obama was born in Kenya, Trump signaled an alliance with those who despised Obama because of his skin color. Trump’s depraved conspiracy was meant to make us see Obama—a self-made, sophisticated Black man—as a savage, running around some mud-hut village in loin cloth and war paint. It wasn’t a dog whistle. It was a bullhorn.
In the end, Biff Tannen always crashes his car into manure. And that’s what’s going to happen to Trump.
Do I think Trump hates Black people? No, I think Trump thrives on division, and racial division is a provocateur every time. I harken back to what then-VP Kamala Harris said about Trump on the debate stage in 2024, “It's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently, over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people."
Whether it’s race or some other subject, Trump never misses a chance to pit the electorate against itself. Anything from Rob Reiner to the Superbowl halftime show, it’s all fodder for a good fight. Our country has never been more divided. Don’t believe me? Scroll through Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), etc. The knives are out. The name calling is ugly. And it’s all about Trump. As long as Trump controls the bully pulpit, we have no hope for unity. He’ll never stop fanning the flames.
This, I suppose, is the Shakespearean flaw of a president (and a person) who must be the center of attention at all times, even if it’s manufactured attention. You might remember, in his pre-political life, Trump routinely planted stories about himself in the New York papers and tabloid magazines, using the alias John Barron to brag about “Trump’s” celebrity connections and romantic relationships.
Maybe Trump suffers from what columnist Maureen Dowd called “Obama Derangement Syndrome.” While I’m certain that’s true, or sort of true, Trump targets migrants, women, and his perceived opponents with equal cruelty. Trump’s ascension to the top of our federal government is akin to Biff Tannen winning Lorraine at the end of Back to the Future. “What’re you lookin’ at, butthead?” Who’d root for that? Apparently 77 million Americans would.
The thing about bullies, even powerful ones like Trump: Deep down, they’re cowards who lack accountability. A few hours after Ms. Leavitt claimed the public didn’t care about Trump’s post, the administration changed its story: “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.” Pinning this on a make-pretend staffer? It simply doesn’t get more Biff Tannen than that.
John F. Kennedy once said, “A rising tide lifts all ships,” meaning when something good happens to the system, everyone benefits. So what’s the net result of a president who tells lies, violates the law, uses the Oval Office to enrich himself and his family, orders the Justice Department to punish his enemies? Who “benefits” inside that system?
As a teacher of 12th graders, I wish we hadn’t heaped such a seismic amount of chaos upon the next generation. But I’m also optimistic. I believe these young people will guide our broken country out of the darkness, perhaps fueled by the dignity-stripping frustration they felt when they realized Trump’s “Truth” was real.
In the end, Biff Tannen always crashes his car into manure. And that’s what’s going to happen to Trump. History will regard the Trump Era as malignantly divisive, and Trump as nothing but a two-bit bully. Bullies never win. They don’t know how to win.
Needless to say, if anyone else, from a CEO to a cashier, had posted the Obamas as apes on their social media, they’d be out of a job before breakfast.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump was asked if he’d apologize for his “racist” post. The president replied, "No, I didn't make a mistake."
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Dementia President: Could It Be That Trump Has Truly Lost His Mind?
Given his behavior, it could very well be that the President of the United States is going nuts.
Sep 29, 2025
Over the weekend, on his Truth Social, Trump shared a video purporting to be a segment on Fox News — it wasn’t — in which an AI-generated, deepfaked version of himself sat in the White House and promised that “every American will soon receive their own MedBed card” that will grant them access to new “MedBed hospitals.”
What?
Believers in the “MedBed” conspiracy theory think certain hospital beds are loaded with futuristic technology that can reverse any disease, regenerate limbs, and de-age people. No one has an actual photo of these beds because they don’t exist.
Trump also posted (again, without any basis in fact) that the FBI “secretly placed … 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during” the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, during which they were “probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists.”
Trump added that this “is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again!” and went on: “Christopher Wray, the then Director of the FBI, has some major explaining to do. That’s two in a row, Comey and Wray, who got caught LYING.”
In fact, the Department of Justice’s inspector general reported that there were no undercover FBI agents at the January 6 riots. (FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed that the few FBI agents present on January 6 were there on “a crowd control mission after the riot was declared.”)
Trump also announced Saturday that he intends to send the U.S. military to Portland, Oregon, authorizing “Full Force, if necessary” to “protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
Hello? Although protesters have been camping on the sidewalks outside the ICE office for months, the demonstration has dwindled to almost nothing. Of the 29 related arrests, 22 happened on or before July 4, when the protests were at their peak.
What’s been the media’s response to Trump’s bonkers postings and announcements this weekend? Nada. The media either ignored them, mentioned them as part of Trump’s “strategy,” or assumed Trump was just being Trump.
But there’s another explanation.
Trump is showing growing signs of dementia. He’s increasingly unhinged. He’s 79 years old with a family history of dementia. He could well be going nuts.
You might think this would be covered in the news, but he isn’t facing anything like the scrutiny for dementia that Joe Biden did.
Perhaps the most telling evidence of Trump’s growing dementia is his paranoid thirst for revenge, on which he is centering much of his presidency.
The paranoia was becoming evident in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. On November 11, 2023, he pledged to a crowd of supporters in Claremont, New Hampshire, that:
“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible — they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.”
Most media commentators chalked this up to overheated campaign rhetoric.
But since occupying the Oval Office, Trump has demanded that his attorney general target political opponents, urged the head of his FCC to threaten a major network for allowing a late-night comedian to say things Trump disliked, suggested that the government revoke TV licenses of network broadcasters that allow criticism of him, and pulled government security clearances from former officials whom he deems his enemies.
Less than two weeks ago, he demanded that the Justice Department prosecute a handful of named political opponents “now!” — including James Comey, whom Trump fired from his post in 2017 after Comey oversaw the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election; Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, who indicted Trump; and Adam Schiff, U.S. senator from California, who played an active role in the House hearings on January 6, 2021.
On September 19, Erik Siebert, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (initially selected for the position by Trump) resigned after Trump told reporters “I want him out.” Siebert had concerns about the strength of the evidence against both Comey and James.
The following day, Trump posted a message to his attorney general, Pam Bondi. “Pam,” it began, “Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”
He said he was promoting Lindsey Halligan, one of his former personal attorneys, to take Siebert’s place, and fumed: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
On September 22, three days after Halligan assumed office, she secured a simple, two-count indictment against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and for allegedly obstructing justice.
“JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey,” Trump exalted on social media following the indictment. “He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.”
The Comey indictment was a blip in the weekly news cycle. The media appeared to shrug: Yes, of course Trump is vindictive, so what else is new?
But wait. Are his acts those of a sane person? Or of an aging paranoid megalomaniac?
Even if it’s unclear to which category Trump belongs, shouldn’t this question be central to the coverage of his presidency? At the very least, shouldn’t the media be actively investigating?
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'No Legal Basis,' Says Harvard After Trump Declares Tax-Exempt Status Will Be Taken Away
"Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission," said a spokesperson for the Ivy League school.
May 02, 2025
Harvard University pushed back forcefully Friday after President Donald Trump declared in a social media post that "we are going to be taking away Harvard Tax Exempt Status," adding that is "what they deserve."
Trump's comment came just hours after Democratic senators sent a letter demanding a probe into whether the administration is acting illegally by trying to compel the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to yank the university's tax exemption.
Trump's post did not specify whether the IRS, the entity that has the power to remove an organization's tax-exempt status, is opting to remove Harvard's designation. Multiple outlets noted they got no immediate response from the IRS when they asked the agency for comment.
"There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard's tax-exempt status," a university spokesperson said in a statement, according to Politico. "Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission."
It is illegal for the president, vice president, or other top officials to request, indirectly or directly, that the IRS audit a particular taxpayer.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and multiple other Democratic senators on Friday asked the Acting Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to probe whether the IRS has received illegal pressure from the administration when it comes to Harvard, and to provide information about whether the agency is looking into other entities at the direction of the president or other top officials.
"It is both illegal and unconstitutional for the IRS to take direction from the president to target schools, hospitals, churches, or any other tax-exempt entities as retribution for using their free speech rights," the senators wrote in a letter dated Friday to the Acting TIGTA Heather Hill.
"It is further unconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the president and his operatives have now made this fear a reality. We request that you review whether the president or his allies have taken any step to direct or pressure the IRS to take politically-motivated actions regarding the tax-exempt status of the president's political targets," they continued.
Loss of tax-exempt status, something that would only typically occur after an audit process that allows the university opportunity to defend itself and appeal, would be extremely significant for the university. Tax-exempt status means the school does not pay federal income tax on charitable contributions to the school and other income. It also means that donations to the school are tax-exempt for those who make them.
Trump mused publicly on April 16 that Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status, after the university's president said the institution would not comply with a list of policy demands from the president, that included, according to the Harvard Crimson, derecognizing pro-Palestine student groups and auditing academic programs for viewpoint diversity. The pushback from Harvard prompted the administration to freeze over $2 billion in federal funding for the school.
That same week, it was reported that the IRS was making plans to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status.
In response to Trump's bullying tactics, Harvard sued the administration, calling the freeze on funding unlawful and asking the court to restore it.
The tangling between Harvard and the Trump administration is part of a broader wave of scrutiny by the White House on higher education.
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