"Let’s say it: Trump is a racist"

 

Why did it take Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) until Friday, after Trump had posted a video portraying former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, to acknowledge that Donald Trump is a hard-bitten racist? And why has legacy media for so long avoided calling Trump racist?

Perhaps if Scott, or any number of lawmakers, had spoken up as strongly when Trump questioned Obama’s birth certificate or rode down the golden escalator in 2015 and launched his campaign while calling Mexican immigrants drug dealers, criminals, and rapists, Trump would not have won the presidency the first time.

Perhaps if the legacy media had identified Trump as a shameless racist years ago, the political, media, and business elite might have found it harder to normalize him and his neo-Confederate MAGA cohort.

The evidence of Trump’s abject bigotry has been out in the open for decades, from his determination to assign the death penalty to the exonerated Central Park 5 to his nonstop racist commentary about immigrants. His attack on DEI is rooted in this same racism, although the legacy media and timid politicians dare not call it that for fear of being labeled “woke.”

Blaming the 2025 D.C. plane crash on DEI; taking down a tribute to Jackie Robinson; replacing MLK, Jr.’s birthday as a federal holiday with his own at our National Parks; trying to write slavery out of the Smithsonian; and arresting Black journalists…are plainly efforts to demean and erase African Americans from our history.

Even before Trump took office in 2025, the ACLU aptly described precisely what he was doing: This attack on DEI is part of a larger backlash against racial justice efforts ignited by the 2020 killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and the nationwide protests — unprecedented in size and diversity — that followed.

The ACLU explained that anti-DEI ideologues frame “their attacks as a strike against ‘identity politics’ and weaponizing the term ‘DEI’ to mean any ideas and policies they disagree with — especially those that address systemic racism and sexism.” This is nothing more than a tactic in “a larger effort by right-wing foundations, think tanks, and political operatives to dismantle civil rights gains made in recent decades.”

Trump has turned the top ranks of civilian and military personnel into a virtually all-white boys club. He has restored the names of Southern slaveholders to military bases; while refusing to appoint a single Black woman to the federal bench in his second term. He has repeatedly hired neo-Nazis and elevated White Nationalist sympathizers. He selected primarily Black and Muslim countries to enforce restrictions and provoke adverse treatment on visas.

Furthermore, his constant insults directed at women — evidenced by the E.J. Carroll sexual assault verdict, or his ongoing mistreatment of female reporters — leave no doubt about his misogynistic venom. His compulsive dehumanization of immigrants and resorting to enabling White supremacists have been at the heart of his presidency. It is hard to conjure what more proof of deep-seated racism and misogyny would be sufficient to persuade those who feign inability to know Trump’s real motives.

It should be noted that, on Friday, in a candid and refreshing move, the New York Times did report: “President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip…then deleted it after an outcry, including from members of his own party.” The paper also acknowledged the endemic nature of Trump’s racism: 

“Mr. Trump has a history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants…. Across Mr. Trump’s administration, racist images and slogans have become common on official sites.” 

However, the Times and other legacy media reporters do not persistently grill him on this topic. In failing to put serial examples of his racism in context, they allow Trump and MAGA politicians to skate along with formulaic denials.

Even now, the regime slides by without serious confrontation. The press should continue interrogating the White House press secretary as to why she originally stated that the Obama video clip elicited “fake outrage.” She needs to be pressed to identify the mystery aide who allegedly posted it erroneously (has that “aide” been fired?) This should be the focus when she returns to the briefing room.

Beyond this incident, corporate/legacy media could confront MAGA politicians, examine the racist views of Trump’s voters, or explain that his policies, however rationalized, are racist. The crusade to destroy the Voting Rights Act could be identified as part and parcel of Trump’s aim to return America to Jim Crow politics, and his plan to make the country whiter through mass deportation could be labeled as the full expression of White nationalism. They could reject his excuses (e.g., DEI is all about “merit”) and refuse to let Republicans scamper away or appear on TV without answering about the most recent racist comment.

Cowed for fear of being labeled as “woke,” elected leaders, sports champions, business leaders, and other prominent figures must stop ignoring the regime’s racist underpinnings, the MAGA party’s White nationalism, and the wholesale assault on pluralistic democracy — which the Supreme Court has aided and abetted (e.g., eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, ending affirmative action).

They should follow Judge Ana C. Reyes’ example: look to Trump’s own words to discern his motives. We need to stop pretending there are benign reasons for policies and personnel decisions that (wow!) just so happen to bolster white men at the expense of all those easily classified as “others.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had it right in demanding his enablers and sycophants aggressively denounce Trump.

Trump might be president, but the time for mincing words and normalizing his ethnic cleansing campaign (disguised as “immigration policy”) has long passed. All decent citizens should ostracize him when he prioritizes frivolous social functions at Mar-A-Lago rather than attending to the needs of the nation (see: snoozing through the Melania premiere while the country grappled with Alex Pretti’s devastating, baseless murder).

Let’s say it: Trump is a racist. The Republican Party tolerates — if it does not actively endorse — his racism. Those who normalize him enable racism. His agenda is grounded in racism.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is community-supported. Get engaged and join the fight by becoming a free or paid subscriber.