All posts tagged "michelle obama"

I’ve been talking into microphones since I did the morning news on WITL in Lansing Michigan in the late 1960s, and I’ve seen a lot of ugly moments in American politics. But every so often something happens that still takes your breath away, not because it’s surprising, but because it’s so painfully revealing.

This latest racist stunt by Donald Trump — reposting a meme on his Nazi-infested social media site in which the Obamas’ faces are superimposed onto the bodies of primates in the jungle set to the 1961 song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens — is one of those moments.

That a popular pro-Trump account on X created this video and it has lived on that platform without consequence is disgusting in and of itself. But Trump — as our president, speaking in our voice — made it infinitely worse last night by promoting it to millions around the world.

Promoting a video that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as non-human primates isn’t a joke. It isn’t satire or an accident. It’s the oldest racist smear in the book, dressed up in a cheap meme and now blasted out by a man who once swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When the president of the United States does something like this, it doesn’t just insult two people. It tells a story about who, according to the most powerful man in the world, belongs in America and who doesn’t.

For centuries, racism in this country has relied on the lie that some people are less than human. That lie has been used to justify slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and mass incarceration.

It’s the lie that made it easier for people to look away while their neighbors were brutalized. It’s the lie that justifies ICE’s brutal, racist behavior. When Trump shares imagery that taps directly into that history, he’s not being edgy: he’s reopening wounds that never fully healed.

When the President of the United States signals that this kind of racism is acceptable, it gives permission to others. It tells the kid being harassed at school, the family being targeted by a hate group, and the voter being pushed out of the polling line that the cruelty they’re experiencing is justified. That it’s their own fault.

It tells the bullies and thugs of ICE as they do their “Kavanaugh Stops” — targeting people based on their race — that they’re on the right side of power.

This isn’t just about harm to minorities, although that harm is real and immediate. It’s about what happens to democracy itself when the presidency becomes a megaphone for dehumanization.

Democracy depends on the idea that we’re all political equals. Once you start suggesting that some Americans are animals, that idea collapses. It becomes easier to justify taking away voting rights, ignore court rulings, or shrug when violence follows hateful rhetoric.

I remember a time, during the era of Eisenhower and Kennedy, when the presidency stood as a kind of moral North Star. Even when presidents like Nixon and Clinton failed to live up to it, there was at least a shared understanding that the office itself mattered. That it should pull us together, not rip us apart.

Trump has spent years doing the opposite, from the 1970s when he was busted along with his father for refusing to rent to Black people to his recent use of words like “vermin” and “shitholes” to describe Hispanic and Black people and majority-Black countries. Last night’s post is another brutally clear example of Trump’s deep, lifelong racism.

What’s even more chilling is the silence from Republican leaders and elected officials. If you can’t bring yourself to condemn something this overtly racist, where exactly is your line?

Silence in moments like this isn’t neutrality: it’s complicity. It tells people of color in America, already dealing with the burden of centuries of institutional racism, that their pain is irrelevant and their dignity a plaything in the hands of white people.

I know some people will say we should ignore it, that reacting “just feeds the outrage machine.” Trump’s propaganda princess, Karoline Leavitt, tried to downplay it by telling reporters:

“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.”

But pretending this doesn’t matter is how we normalize it and weaken our shared sense of humanity. And the end point of that is always disaster.

As California Governor Gavin Newsome posted:

“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

“Denounce” is a bare minimum. This country can do better. We’ve done better before, often after terrible struggle and sacrifice.

But we won’t get there by minimizing moments like this or waving them off as “just another Trump post.” We get there by calling it what it is, by standing up for one another as equals in our humanity, and by insisting that the presidency must reflect our highest ideals, not our ugliest instincts.

If this doesn’t provoke the 13 white billionaires in Trump’s cabinet — who would all instantly fire anybody in any of their companies who posted such an image on their company’s servers — to start 25th Amendment proceedings or endorse impeachment, it’ll tell us everything about who they are, too.

America is stronger when we recognize each other as fully human. The moment we let that slip, we all lose something precious.

• Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

There should be absolutely, positively no confusion about what happened this week. When Donald Trump shared a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, he didn’t “make a mistake,” "instigate controversy,” or “post something offensive.”

He reached for one of the oldest, ugliest, and most dangerous racist tropes in American history. The dehumanization of Black people as animals.

And not just animals: apes. It was vulgar, vile, disgusting and unacceptable. It was seditious.

That trope Trump menacingly shared has justified enslavement, lynching, segregation, and state violence for centuries. It is not accidental. It is not humorous — at all. It is violent in its intent and impact.

When Trump was asked if he would apologize to the Obamas, he said: “No. I didn’t make a mistake.”

He’s right. It wasn’t a mistake. It’s embedded in his being. Racism boils in Trump’s blood. It festers on his lily white skin. It marinates through his demented mind. He voice croaks white power. Racism slithers out of his fingers.

This is the same man who took out full-page ads calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, teens who were later exonerated. The same man who led the racist birther conspiracy against the first Black president.

The same man who spoke of “very fine people on both sides” after white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” The same man who broke bread at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes, an open white nationalist.

The pattern is not subtle. It is intentional. The escalation is not surprising. And with Trump, as in everything else, it will be compounded. And it needs to stop.

Because it cannot ever be tolerated..

What is intolerable, and what must now be confronted, is the silence and complicity of those who continue to support him. The monsters who feed the beast of bigotry.

Racism does not operate in a silo. It requires enablers. It requires money. It requires whitewashing reputations. And today, some of the most powerful corporations, CEOs, and cultural figures in America are providing exactly that. They are complicit in a crime that threatens the moral fabric of our society.

Enough is enough. And these monsters need to be stopped.

If you kneel before power while that power spreads racism, you are not neutral. You are complicit.

When CEOs and billionaires line up at the White House bearing gifts, when they bankroll inaugurations, when they fund vanity projects like a $300 million White House ballroom, they are not just currying favor. They are endorsing the behavior that comes with that power. And when that power openly traffics in racist dehumanization, their money becomes an accomplice. It funds torture. It funds danger. It funds death.

Here’s a list of businesses that support Trump, courtesy of Newsweek. And, here’s how you help some of them spread racism through their association with the Beast of Bigotry:

• Buy an Apple product while Tim Cook offers his loyalty? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
• Cheer the Patriots in the Super Bowl while Robert Kraft aligns himself, and wines and dines with Trump? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
• Drive a Tesla while Elon Musk amplifies and normalizes Trumpism? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
• Where does your monthly subscription to Amazon Prime go? It lines the pockets of Jeff Bezos who is an unabashed accomplice to racism.
• Do business tied to Steve Wynn? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.
• Purchase Johnson & Johnson products, whose heir Woody Johnson endorses Trump with vigor? You are supporting an accomplice to racism.

And the list doesn’t stop with individuals.

Major corporations — tech giants, defense contractors, energy conglomerates, financial firms — have poured money into Trump’s 2025 inauguration and into constructing a lavish White House ballroom. Amazon. Google. Meta. Microsoft. Apple. Palantir. Nvidia. Coinbase. Lockheed Martin. Boeing. Chevron. Comcast. And many others across tech, crypto, defense, energy, and manufacturing.

This is not passive participation. This is active sponsorship of racism. Trump is the metaphorical David Duke of American racism in 2026. These names and companies are giving money to the modern day iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, led by Grand Wizard Trump.

When corporations fund a bigot, they legitimize him. When they remain silent in the face of overt racism, they send a message louder than the crackling of burning crosses.

To them, profits matter more than the sanctity of lives. Access matters more than tolerance. Comfort matters more than harassment. We need to remove the white hoods from these white men who remain silent and supplicant in the face of tyranny and bigotry.

Not one of these donors has condemned the racist attack on the Obamas. Not one has drawn a line. Not one has said, this is unacceptable. Not one. Is that acceptable to you?

Silence, in this moment, is consent for the barbaric Neo-Nazi who spews Black hate with the press of a button.

Racism in America does not survive on hatred alone. It survives because powerful people decide it is tolerable, or at least profitable. Because they believe the outrage will pass. Because they assume consumers will keep buying, cheering, streaming, and investing.

They are wrong. Or they should be.

Boycott them.

Picket them.

Call them out by name.

Send letters.

Withdraw your money, your attention, your clicks, your brand loyalty.

Make racism expensive again. Take a stand. Collectively. Together. No one should be silent any longer. What was done to the Obamas should be a wake-up call. This is what hatred looks like when it feels invincible.

Trump is responsible for his racism. But everyone who props him up, funds him, normalizes him, profits alongside him, and shares responsibility for the damage he causes.

Racism has accomplices. And America needs to start treating them like the klansmen criminals that they are.

• John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”