Donald Trump’s video was horrifically racist, but there was another dangerous detail
Let’s be clear about what happened HE Donald Trump’s social media post.
The one-minute video was republished from the bowels of Trump’s right-wing echo chamber, Truth Social. An unconnected, one-second cartoon clip depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys appeared at the very end of the video.
This was one of many items reposted on Trump’s account in rapid succession around midnight, which is not unusual. The White House told us it was a staff member, not Trump. Reposting has now been removed.
It’s unclear whether the person who made the post watched the video until the end or noticed the horribly racist meme that emerged. Trump says he didn’t watch it in its entirety before delivering it to be sent out into the world.
But would that make a difference? Trump’s account shared all kinds of putrid material from deep within the far-right ecosystem, including AI clips of a pilot dumping tons of feces on protesting Americans and fake footage of Obama being arrested by the FBI.
The president’s bar for public distribution is very low. In his own words: “When people give me things, I publish them.”
Moreover, the bar for standards of public discourse has also fallen under the Trump administration.
The video his account shared was less offensive than Obama’s hilarious meme, but it was still dangerous; He was spreading misinformation about election fraud. We expect to see a lot more of this as the midterm approaches.
Whether Trump or his team wanted to share the Obamas’ racist meme is debatable. When you play in the sewers you will get dirty.
But Trump has poured mud down the drain for so long that it is no longer possible to be shocked or outraged by what he has produced.
As history professor Ian Reifowitz described this byline for a piece about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal this week, there is no longer an expectation in US media or politics that actions will have consequences.
“If a person has done 500 things that should end their career, who cares about the 501st?” Reidowitz said:
Trump’s behavior is particularly egregious regarding Obama. When Trump frequently refers to the 44th president as “Barack Hussein Obama,” it’s hard to describe it as anything other than overt racism. After all, he doesn’t call Biden “Joe Robinette Biden.”
Is Trump an entrenched white supremacist who enjoys and spreads memes depicting black people as primates? Not exactly.
But is he capable of racism? Yes. And did it lead to a collapse in American public life and standards that led to the normalization and even celebration of such racism? Definitely.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
