To say donald trump is a racist is like saying water is wet and fire is hot. He proves it over and over as he did over the weekend. Late Thursday night trump posted a disgusting video (I only saw a still frame) that showed the faces of President Obama and the First Lady, Michelle Obama, on the bodies of apes. It was revolting. For anyone in any profession, doing this would automatically result in that person’s dismissal from their place of work. Think about it, if a teacher, or realtor, or football coach, or business executive, or pastor, or social worker – or ANYONE had posted this same video, they would be fired. But for trump and the Republicans, it was only another Friday. They are normalizing racism. 

Yesterday, trump and Turning Point, the right wing attack organization that was once run by Charlie Kirk, were so disgusted by the idea of a nonwhite performer doing the halftime show during the Super Bowl in another language, they created their own halftime show that, oh by the way, featured white performers. They called it the All-American Halftime Show, apparently not realizing that Bad Bunny comes from Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States. Yes, Bad Bunny is a citizen of the United States so the NFL already has an all-American show, but this administration and their cronies are so racist, they had to create their own halftime show featuring a veritable who’s who of who? I didn’t know any of the performers and, let’s be honest, Bad Bunny was AMAZING. The funny thing is that even trump didn’t watch the Turning Point show! 

And this was just a typical weekend during a trump administration. But let us remember a few of the other ways this president has plumbed the depths of human hatred and bigotry: 

• After ridiculously and baselessly accusing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of eating cats and dogs during the election, the trump administration recently tried to remove Temporary Protective Status of over 350,000 Haitian migrants, making them eligible for the ICE slave patrols to kidnap them and deport them (a federal judge blocked this for now, thank God). 
• In the first weeks of their time in office they spent most of their time blaming a tragic crash over the Potomac between an army helicopter and a passenger airline on DEI when, it turned out, those in command were all white. 
• The trump administration is literally trying to rewrite history, removing Black people and other people of color from the pages of history. Some examples include: 
  • removing Jackie Robinson’s name from a Department of Defense website that took note of Robinson’s being court-martialed at the end of World War II because he refused to move to the back of the bus, 
  • canceling free admission to national parks on two national holidays that have to do with Black history (Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth), and 
  • this last week, federal workers were ordered to remove brochures from the Medgar Ever’s monument in Jackson, MS because they named the man who assassinated Evers, noted Klansman Byron De La Beckwith, as a “racist.” No, we are no longer allowed to call the man who killed Medgar Evers a racist. 

For the sake of space, I am ending the list here. There are TOO MANY to list. 

But let us not be fooled. donald trump, while certainly the most vile racist who has ever inhabited the Oval Office, is most definitely NOT the first. Here are a few we tend to forget about: 

• Woodrow Wilson screened the racist film, Birth of a Nation, which dehumanized Black people and glorified the Klan. Wilson said the film “is like writing history with lightning” which ensured it would be a blockbuster, perpetuating racist tropes for generations. 
• Teddy Roosevelt took the side against Black soldiers in Brownsville, Texas in 1906 who were unjustly accused by townspeople of killing two white residents. There was no evidence brought against the soldiers who, as a result, were ultimately dishonorably discharged, thus losing their pensions. 
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to challenge the racist Southern lawmakers in his party and allowed them to block the passage of anti-lynching legislation. Then, when national labor legislation was being passed, Roosevelt allowed these same racist, Southern lawmakers to carve out worker protections for fieldworkers and domestic workers so that those same racist, Southern lawmakers could continue to mistreat their Black farmhands and Black nannies and cooks. 
• Richard Nixon used what Kevin Phillips coined the “Southern Strategy” to gain white Democratic votes in the South by trading in overtly racist name calling for terms like “law and order,” “busing,” and “reverse discrimination” that they used to gut affirmative action policies. Many other presidential candidates, including the current office holder, have followed this same playbook using these coded messages to demonize people of color. 
• Ronald Reagan officially kicked off his presidential race in 1980 in Philadelphia, MS, the site of the brutal murders of civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner, and spoke of the need for “states’ rights.” He also regularly used the trope, “welfare queen,” to demonize Black women who used necessary social services. 
• George H. W. Bush, at one point losing in the polls to Michael Dukakis, used the story of a Black inmate named Willie Horton, who was let out of a Massachusetts prison and then brutally killed a couple, to scare a predominantly white electorate to be afraid Black criminals would run wild under Dukakis, even though the policy for which Horton was let out was passed under a Republican Governor. 
• Bill Clinton interrupted his campaign for the presidency to go back to Arkansas to oversee the death penalty of a Black inmate who was functionally not able to understand what was happening (he saved his dessert from his last meal for after he was taken to the electric chair). As president, Clinton passed draconian legislation that has been horrible for migrants and people impacted by the criminal justice system. He and HIllary even popularized the term, “super predator,” which deemed most young Black men as unredeemable savages intent on murdering and stealing. 

I am stopping here for the sake of space because there are also TOO MANY to list! The truth is racism is endemic to the American experience and the politics of the United States. The truth also is, for this administration, racism is not just a part of who they are or the policies they implement. They are first, and foremost racist. It is at the core of every single thing they say and do. In essence, they are All-American Racists.