Before Juneteenth fades away in the rearview mirror, as yet another Republican president recklessly drives us toward yet another unwinnable war in the Middle East, I want to spend just a few minutes on this federal holiday, and the very old and sickening reasons lowlifes like Donald Trump make a point of hating it.
First, let’s talk about why Juneteenth is celebrated, because I reckon 80 percent of America couldn’t tell you at least that much (and if Trump’s hideous party has their way, it will never be taught at all):
On June 19, 1865, the Union’s Major General Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the city of Galveston, Texas, which sits hard on the Gulf of Mexico. It was now nearly two and a half years since President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Upon arriving in this port city, Major General Granger let the population there know the Civil War had ended two months earlier, the North had won, and enslaved African Americans there were officially, and FINALLY free. Only months later, the 13th Amendment was ratified, officially abolishing slavery everywhere in America.
Can you imagine what this moment must have been like? It can be argued this is the most significant day in this country’s erratic history.
Why, even Donald Trump himself briefly stumbled into this realization when he said this in 2017, just months after his improbable victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election:
“Melania and I send our warmest greetings to all those celebrating Juneteenth, a historic day recognizing the end of slavery.”
Even if there’s no way in the world Trump actually wrote that statement, it was the thought that counted. Even if the guy who relentlessly pilloried Barack Obama for years with his disgusting, racist birther blather meant none of what he officially put on the record that day, it was the right thing to do.
Predictably, just two months later, the reckless racist was back on the road to hate when he couldn’t bring himself to say a bad word about the white supremacist terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, that disgraced America and resulted in the terrible murder of Heather Heyer, along with horrific injuries to dozens of other innocent Americans who were protesting against the vulgar event.
This was who Trump really was. This was the guy who has had countless endorsements from the KKK, and by Thursday evening had endured enough of all these Juneteenth celebrations. So he went out with this reprehensible, grammatically challenged blast. It would be his only public proclamation on Juneteenth, 2025:
This was classic Trump taking a deep, noxious breath and blowing hot air into his nuclear-powered dog whistle.
He never mentioned Juneteenth once on Thursday, but made sure his racist base knew exactly what he thought of the day. Now into a second term that he will do everything to ensure is an endless one, there is no reason to play it cute any longer as he had very briefly in 2017.
And, hey, that’s a real shame for a guy who spends hours in front of a mirror each morning taping a dead ferret to his head, while liberally slathering orange mud on his graying face just to look pretty …
King Crud wanted everybody to know last night that he was back on the throne breaking wind, and all protocols of decency.
This was the dirty, old man who has repeatedly called Democrats “scum” and earlier this week was standing in his weird way on the White House lawn proudly fondling a flag poll somebody else erected for him.
“It’s such a beautiful pole,” he gushed … (Tell us you have issues down there, without actually telling us you have issues down there, sport …)
This was the low-energy loser who harrumphed out of the G7 meetings Monday night because he can no longer even pretend to be a valuable contributor. He needs his naps, and a regular diaper change.
This is the guy who has proven time and again he has absolutely no ability, nor talent, to govern, but does have an endless capacity to hate. He has never passed any meaningful legislation that helps most Americans, but lately is pushing his “big, beautiful” bill that will coddle and burp the billionaires who stuff his bottomless pockets, while beating the working class into submission.
And even none of that really matters to Trump just as long as he can projectile vomit lawless executive orders, but most important, remind us all of his singular political talent: understanding his party’s endless capacity to hate.
“They’re eating our dogs and cats!!!!”
Back when I was but a cub reporter breaking into journalism, I was told by a growling editor to just “write what I know.” It was good advice, and why in looking back on a lot of my writings in the past decade, I have spent an inordinate amount of time on the subject of race.
I view the subject through the lens of a white man now well into my 60s, who has seen a few things. After a lifetime of living pretty well, I know how good I’ve had it. Like the odious Trump, I have never experienced life on the other side, but I am an expert on what goes on on this side.
I have seen casual and overt racism from white people I grew up with, and others I came to know through the years. It turned my stomach, but too often I let it go, until Trump came along in 2015, and I decided it was time to publicly stand up and put it down wherever I see it.
I have lost many old friends, and gained many new ones, whose heart and pride have had a profound effect on me.
So here is what I know as a white man: Racism continues to be America’s most difficult issue to grapple with, and the reprehensible Donald Trump exploits the volatility and the heat that comes with it to split us in two.
He does this because he is a damn bigot.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)