PERFUME AND EXCUSES FROM TRUMP FOR INSULTING BLACKS, OBAMAS

By Michael Jochum

There is no gray area here. 

None. 

Depicting Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes is not satire, it’s not “edgy,” it’s not an “internet meme,” and it sure as hell is not “fake outrage.” It is one of the oldest, most putrid racist tropes in the American sewer system, comparing Black human beings to monkeys in order to dehumanize them.

That imagery was used to justify slavery, segregation, lynching, and systemic humiliation for generations. Anyone pretending not to understand that is either historically illiterate or morally bankrupt. 

And when the President of the United States shares it, whether for one second or sixty-two, it isn’t an accident. It’s a signal. It’s a wink to the ugliest corners of his base. It’s a reminder that cruelty is still the currency of his political brand.

And then comes the inevitable chorus of enablers. The press secretary dismisses it as a meme. Staffers say it was “erroneously” posted. Allies urge everyone to calm down. 

This is the pattern. Every time he steps in something foul, the administration rushes in with perfume and excuses, as if the American public can’t smell what’s right in front of us. This is the same man who launched his political career on the racist lie that Obama wasn’t born in this country. The same man who has never found a kind word for anyone who challenges him, and rarely even for those who don’t. 

His rhetoric has always been a river of bile, but now it feels more unhinged, more desperate, like a man thrashing as the walls close in. When even Republican Senator Tim Scott calls it “the most racist thing” he’s seen from this White House, that should tell you something.

What makes this especially grotesque is the transparent distraction machine humming underneath it all. The same week credible voices are demanding accountability on the Epstein files, we get jungle-king cosplay and racist memes set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” 

The White House tells us to focus on “what matters.” Apparently what matters is not decency, not dignity, not the basic human respect owed to former presidents and first ladies, especially the first Black family to ever occupy the White House. 

Apparently what matters is protecting a man whose behavior grows more aberrant by the day, whose speech drifts into incoherence, whose physical decline is harder and harder to disguise, and whose response to pressure is always the same: lash out, demean, degrade.

This is not normal politics. This is not hardball. This is rot. And every Republican who shrugs, deflects, or whispers criticism without consequence becomes complicit in that rot. You cannot claim to love this country while excusing the deliberate dehumanization of its citizens for cheap applause. 

You cannot preach faith while laughing at imagery that echoes centuries of racial hatred. And you certainly cannot hide behind the word “meme” when the poison is that obvious. History will not be confused about what this was. It will not file it under humor. It will file it under disgrace.