In Front of Our Noses: A President Who Posts Blatantly Racist Images
Trump and the Obamas.
Via the NYT: Trump Posts Video Portraying the Obamas as Apes.
President Trump late Thursday night shared a video that contained a brief clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
The clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about anomalies in the 2020 presidential election.
The clip appeared to have been taken from a video that was shared in October by a user on X whose watermark is shown, with the caption “President Trump: King of the Jungle,” and an emoji of a lion.
In that video, several high-profile Democrats — including former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former vice president Kamala Harris — were shown as zebras, giraffes and other animals, while Mr. Trump was depicted as a lion. The Obamas, in the clip, were shown as apes. The video ended with the animals bowing down to Mr. Trump.
But, you know, no big deal. Just another day in the Trump White House.
In response to questions about the clip, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called it “fake outrage.”
She added: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King.”
I sincerely miss the days when a) it was unlikely, to say the least, that the occupant of the White House would post a racist video on social media, and b) if they did so, it would be an embarrassing scandal.
Instead, we get shrugging of shoulders, excuses that it is just “Trump being Trump” (which, of course, it is), and denial and/or downplaying from the administration.
In the pantheon of things I could be writing about, this is far down the list, but I think it is also the kind of thing worthy of noting or, at least, not ignoring. Not only is it blatantly and obviously racist, but it is also an illustration of the childishness of the sitting president, alongside the fact that he has a tremendously important job and yet spends a ridiculous amount of time on social media, mostly to stroke his own ego.
While on the one hand, I can hear the responses now that it is better that he play on Truth Social than actually be trying to govern, on the other hand, not only does it show a problematic mind, but I would note that he is not beyond getting ideas about governing from memes on Truth Social.
Moreover, I would note, if you have ever doomscrolled on Twitter, Blueksy, or wherever, you know how it can affect your mood and outlook. Can you imagine how the massive ego and weird, stunted intellect of Donald J. Trump are affected by a social media platform designed to praise him?
Part of me doesn’t want to share the image, but I think it is important to see it. Here is a screenshot from a CNN clip:
The linked clip is worth watching as well because it shows yet another Republican elected official who lacks the fortitude to say anything that might get him in trouble with Trump.
The way this president relentlessly degrades the office, corrupts his party, and coarsens our society is truly staggering.
UPDATES:
- Here is a great piece about how much time Trump spent on Truth Social in 2025 from WCVB: Here’s the data on how President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in 2025.
- And via that link, a searchable database of his posts via Roll Call.
Or that a government official would act like a five year old pretending context doesn’t exist.
I’m shocked! Trump always seemed to be such a classy guy.
What do Republican politicians say about this? Let’s ask Mike Johnson for his opinion.
The smartest thing Trump ever did was put that magic “(R)” after his name before getting into politics.
This is deeply appalling and disturbing. And Karoline Leavitt needs to never, ever be employed by anyone after she leaves this job, she is a disgrace.
The defense I anticipate is that Dems have long compared Trump to an orangutan. (There were also a lot of Dubya-chimp memes, but I don’t think they’ll go back that far.) Of course this argument is bogus as there’s no history of doing ape comparisons against whites because they are white, but I don’t expect the MAGA defenders to grasp this distinction.
All that said, while I could be mistaken, as far as I can recall Trump has never done or shared Obama-ape memes before, so this is a new line he’s crossed. You can call it trivial compared to so many other things going on, but it does at least suggest his willingness to reach new extremes.
Over 72 posts in 10 minutes????
Somewhat of a tangent, but recently I watched a Neil DeGrasse Tyson podcast where he discusses the history of scientists classifying black people as an evolutionary middle ground between humans and chimps, and he argues that if black people had dominated Western science back then and wanted to be racist against whites, they could just as easily have pointed to features in which Caucasians seem more chimp-like than blacks do (more body hair, thin lips, bigger ears, relatively light skin, etc.).
The comments under Tyson’s video were filled with people accusing him of promoting anti-white racism, completely missing the point he was making. His point isn’t even remotely new, or an argument exclusively made by blacks. Martin Gardner’s 1957 classic Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science includes the following remark: