Race To the Bottom

 Warning sign of racism: When someone says, "I don't want to sound racist but..."  

Yeah, very likely some racist shit will follow.

Or how about this sentence: "I'm the least racist person you know."  

That sentiment is frequently espoused by Donald Trump.

So here's a spoiler: Donald Trump is racist as fuck! 

Since the days when Trump was a younger self professed real estate wunderkind, Li'l Donnie has made it clear his adversion to anyone with a darker skin than his.  

His whole rise to political prominence was fueled by his racist propagation of the lie Barack Obama was not born in the United States. 

His racism was not a bug but a feature with a large enough electorate who was fed up that a black man dared sully the White House with his mere presence for 8 years.  

Trump 2.0 has even more fully embraced the rhetoric and ideology of White Supremacists.  

So it should come as no surprise when Li'l Donnie posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

The video is ostensibly about the 2020 "election fraud" that poor widdle Donnie still thinks cheated him of his big win.

SIDE HASSLE:  After November 2020 when Donald Trump was whining and bitching that Joe Biden and the Democrats cheated and he really won and by a lot, a lot of Republicans in positions of power who supported Trump still remembered what their jobs were and that their loyalty was to the Constitution and not to der Führer.  Repeatedly and consistentlty, efforts to justify Trump's wild accusations of voter fraud were rebuffed by the Department of Justice and dozens of courts. 

For Trump 2.0,  a lot of Republicans in positions of power are in those positions for their loyalty to der Führer and not to the Constitution.

Which explains the raid on the Fulton County (Georgia) Elections Office by the FBI for private voter information to support Trump's delusions of fraud. 

Also on the scene was Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.  As DNI, Gabbard is in charge of international operations such as the CIA.  She had no business being on site for a domestic operation being carried out by the FBI. 

Gabbard was on the phone with Trump during the Fulton County raid and put der Führer on speaker so he could give the FBI agents a pep talk about what a great thing they were doing for the country. 

If all of that sounds suspicious, well, it is. Not only is Trump investing government resources paid for by your tax dollars to further is deranged dementia fueled delusions, but he's trying to stir up distrust in our voting systems ahead of the 2026 mid-terms.  

Which if the Republicans lose control of Congress, Trump and his cronies are in so much deep shit. 

But I digress. 

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Donald Trump is a racist.

Comparing African Americans to primates is a well-worn trope of your standard issue racism and it was so overtly wrong and inappropriate, yes, there was outrage.

No, there wasn't. The outrage was "fake".

Propoganda minister Press secretary Karoline Leavitt immediately leapt into action to defend der Führer. “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.”

The outrage is fake, you say, dear fraulein? 

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the sole Black Republican in the Senate might take issue with that assessment.  “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”

That just one guy, right? No wait! There's more. 

• Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said it’s “totally unacceptable.” 
• Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) went further by calling it “blatantly racist and inexcusable.” 
• Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said it shouldn’t have been posted, adding it is “not who we are as a nation.”
• Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) wrote "Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”
• From the House, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) urged Trump to apologize to the former president and former first lady for his “incredibly offensive” post.
• Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) described it as “heartbreaking." 
• Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) dubbed it a “a grave failure of judgment.”

Reminder: Leavitt defended the racist post and claimed any complaints about it amount to fake outrage.  

And the post remained up and active for 12 hours.

After the complaints from erstwhile Trump supporting Republicans, only then was the post deleted with the following explanation: The video was “erroneously” posted by a staffer.

Who did what when to what now?  

Trump claimed he reviewed the first section of the video and passed it along to a staffer, who then failed to review the whole thing and did not catch the offensive content at the end. “Somebody slipped and missed a very small part."

By the way, for those Republicans who called on Trump to apologize? Well, fuck that option. Trump says he did nothing wrong and has nothing to apologize for.  

FUN FACT: President Harry Truman had a sign on this desk that read: "The buck stops here."  

I suppose if Li'l Donnie had a similar sign, it would read, "The buck stops over there." 

And yeah, Trump assures us once more of his lack of racism: "the least racist president you've had in a long time".

Again, if you have to SAY you're not racist, well...

SIDE HASSLE:  If you watched that clip above to the end, yeah, Trump is holding infrastructure funding hostage to his ego to get his name slapped on things.

There are no limits to his pettiness and his narcissm.  

OK, back to the topic at hand: Trump's a racist.

Anyway, the whole kerfluffle was just a simple misunderstanding caused by a mistake made by somebody else and hell no, we're not buying this.

1) The video is not that long and it's very unlikely Trump did not see it to the racist content at the end. Unless Li'l Donnie's attention deficit disorder is worse that we think.

2) Trump's adherence to racist themes and white supremacist ideology is well documented.  The depiction of the Obamas as apes to Trump would not be a bug but the whole damn point.

3) The offending video stayed up for 12 hours, long after objections to it were made known.

4) It was only when Trump allies in Congress called this damn thing out was the video taken down.  

Click here for a comment on this topic by Mark Evanier.  

The thing is Trump 2.0 has no limits or filters on his raging disdain for people who are not him and no reason to restrain is persistent racism.

Trump's on a race to the bottom to see how quickly he can drag us there with him. 

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BLOG BIDNESS: The Super Bowl was yesterday. A blog post about that will be forthcoming later this morning.