On a Supremely Craven, Racist, Narcissistic Presidency
In 1:02 seconds Trump lies about elections, covets a spot on Mt. Rushmore -- and portrays Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, maybe the most anti-Black trope of all time.
Donald Trump was on a social-media tear last night, and the worst political bottom-dweller of all time found himself a brand new subterranean low, re-posting a horribly sleazy, racist video portraying Michelle and Barack Obama as monkeys.
During this dirty soul-baring, Trump repeats lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him by claiming that the Dominion Voting Systems machines were rigged to help Joe Biden win the presidency, a claim touted by Fox News. Fox was found liable for the lies in court. They paid Dominion $787.5 million in damages and publicly admitted to having knowingly propagated a false claim.
But that “truth-willed-out” doesn’t stop Trump for continuing to spread the lie to a more than willing group of hard-core believers continuing to clutch their Trump bibles, buy red hats, and Trump bitcoins. Soon they’ll be getting their meds from Trump Pharmacies. Trump’s shakedown/cash-in now totals more than $4,000,000,000. Not bad for a year’s work, huh?
After lying about the voting machines (again), he pushes No. 46 in his list of massively egotistical self-aggrandizements: that he deserves his face to up there on Mt. Rushmore alongside Teddy Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson. No, Mr. Trump, you do not.
But by far, the piece de resistance was his brief, but indelible, image of the heads of Barack and Michelle Obama on the bodies of monkeys. There is no more hideous racist trope regarding blacks than this: equating them to animals, sub-human, animalistic.
The Times notes:
The office of Gavin Newsom, the California governor who is a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, condemned the post. “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” Newsom’s press office account posted on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser and close confidant of President Obama, also condemned the imagery.
I’m with Ben Rhodes. I’m now keeping a list of the buildings, projects, renovated places that will need to be torn down and healed when Trump is gone:
The East Wing of the White House
The barf white-and-gold “ballroom” (if built)
The “Trump Arch” if built
The Kennedy Center, which Trump plans to “renovate” because his name’s being associated with it has turned off the majority of great musicians in any genre on this planet.
It he gets his sticky little paws on Mt. Rushmore, I think there’ll be an extraordinary outcry. As there should be.
Meanwhile, here’s Nate Silver’s latest aggregate on Trump’s approval, and if he’s doing this kind of thing in the middle of the night, somebody out to take that cell phone away from him.
Meanwhile, I’ll give Ben Rhodes the last word:
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” he wrote on X.
Too right.
Don't forget the Oval Office full of sticker gold decor on every surface. And trump's boutique in the room next door.