Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
“Calling us racist doesn’t work anymore.”
“Let them call you racist. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativist. Wear it as a badge of honor.”
“Sometimes Minnesotans are so afraid that you’re going to call us a racist, you’re going to call us an Islamophobe, you’re going to call us some name that we just don’t want to get into that fight. You know what, I would argue that I never did care, but I’m done being careful, even the least bit careful.”
They no longer hide in the woodwork. In Donald Trump’s America, racism has become a badge of honor, worn with pride by the icy posses of the right, his deputized agents of hate, and other self-proclaimed “patriots.”
Those who decry the rise of the “new antisemitism” remain silent on the old racism, which isn’t old at all, merely less flamboyantly expressed. Today, this new variation boldly emerges from the shadows of what was once called “polite racism,” “banal racism,” or what Jared Taylor, the founder of the white nationalist American Renaissance,euphemistically touts as “race realism.” Whatever you call it, under Trump, the right’s “Hope and Change” mirror-universe Obama, racism has been normalized, as an expanding swath of white America, seeking scapegoats for the nation’s moral and economic decline, anxiously frets about the rising tide of color they fear will replace them and “their values.” The fact that among these fretters are individuals from the very groups comprising that tide, such as Black Voices for Trump, Latinos for Trump, and Indian Americans for Trump – should give pause, if only to recognize that racism, like other oppressive, classify-and-conquer systems, requires collaborators.
Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News and NBC News host turned meltdown podcaster, who once insisted that Jesus and Santa Claus are white, defended blackface, and raged against the New Black Panthers [1], only to issue disingenuous apologies when her racism was called out, now angrily demands that Haitians “go back to fucking Haiti.” She accuses them of being unassimilable because they have not adopted the work ethic of a country built in large part on the backs of enslaved blacks[2] as their owners exalted the virtues of liberty, equality, and the rights of white men. Although she faced another social media backlash, this time Kelly has not apologized. Immersed in the blooming rejecting pool of toxic hate that is social media, she has turned vociferous race-baiting into her brand, her disdain for black and brown people fueling her podcasting fame and profitability.
Not to be outdone, Trump has proclaimed that he does not want Somalis “in our country,” labeling them “garbage.”[3]A year ago, Trump’s supporters would have deflected by telling us that the president was simply being his usual straight-talking self or joking, though this “joke” seemed to be cribbed from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, another unapologetic trash talker. Today, they double down. Seven years ago, Trump denied he called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries.” Now, he confirms he did. He has repeatedly told Rep. Ilhan Omar to “go back to your country,” the latest instance occurring at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where – this time uninterrupted – he performed his signature vile rally material.
Trump is not alone. Representative Tom Emmer tells a predominantly white Faith and Freedom Coalition audience in Washington, D.C. that if visitors to America “don’t assimilate, then they should go the hell back to wherever they came from,” a remark welcomed with enthusiastic applause. While his immediate target is Minnesota’s Somali community, his use of “wherever” left the geographic boundary conveniently vague. His phraseology makes clear that he meant people – to borrow the president’s slur – from “shithole countries.” However, despite his self-professed “aggressive-aggressive” temperament, he fails to tell the Somalis this to their faces.
Immigrants and refugees of color stand accused of rejecting Christian American values. In keeping with the conference, Emmer presents himself as a defender of those values, though judging by his statements, he seems unfamiliar with Luke 10:30-37 and Luke 17:11-19, biblical passages in which despised Samaritans prove more compassionate than their detractors. More disturbingly, and contrary to Luke’s teachings, Emmer’s remarks suggest he believes his faith allows him to reject modern-day Samaritans, regardless of their actions, simply because they are Samaritans.
Ironically, the targets of the diversity-averse right are remarkably diverse, unified only by the threat their pigmentation and alleged inability to assimilate pose to the ablocracy. Alongside de rigueur anti-black and brown rhetoric, when it comes to anti-Indian American racism, MAGA’s marching morons are legion.
Brandon Gill has called Indian Americans “7-Eleven workers,” which means he can take advantage of its family benefit program because his wife, Danielle D’Souza, is the daughter of Dinesh D’Souza, the felonious conservative Indian American political pundit. Gill has also circulated a petition calling for the deportation of his House colleague Omar and told New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World.” He has accused those who confront racism as themselves being racist, taking to heart General Todd Blanche’s accusation that the Southern Poverty Law Center is “manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” as if there were not enough of the real thing.
During the 2024 presidential election, Ann Coulter declared she was a “fan” of Vivek Ramaswamy, describing him as “bright” and “articulate,” smugly clarifying that it was acceptable to label him the latter because “he’s not an American black.” She added that while she agreed with him on “many, many of the things he said,” she could not vote for him “because you’re an Indian.” [4]
For its part, during the Republican primaries, Trump’s campaign directed its own vitriol at Nikki Haley. Now, the righteously racist vent their opprobrium at Usha Vance. All of this proves that their acceptance of Indian Americans, like that of other Americans of color, runs only skin-deep.
Although months in coming, to his credit, Vance did fire back at those who attacked his wife, though defending one’s family is usually regarded as a basic human reaction, unless, that is, you belong to the same party as Senator Bernie Moreno. However, Vance has been far less emphatic about racism directed at those outside his family, at one point even serving as an apologist for the Young Republican National Federation after hundreds of racist texts were leaked to the media. Worse still, when DOGE staffer Marko Elez resigned over his own racist social media posts, including one in which he wrote “I was racist before it was cool” and another that read “Normalize Indian hate,” he was rehired thanks to Vance, proving exactly how “cool” racism has become, especially in the forgiving eyes of the Vice President as long as it is not directed at his own family. Just young’un being edgy young’uns, as the bestselling, erstwhile elegiac hillbilly might put it. But then, what did you expect? Remember, this is the same man who once called Trump “America’s Hitler,” only to retract it when it served his political aspirations, and who today professes to be against racism and antisemitism, yet deleted his old blog posts critical of Republican racism.
These advocates of racial chauvinism embody a bizarre paradox; they openly express their distaste for people of color, unless they are their spouses, children, political allies, or proverbially some of their “best friends.” Significantly, Indian Americans have increasingly come to serve as both a target of their racism and a convenient symbol of their “tolerance,” proving once again that racism is as unoriginal in its rhetoric as it is paradoxically egalitarian in its capacity for hatred.
Such racism, however, is not confined to words; it is embedded in both domestic and foreign policy, where it takes the form of deportations, punitive tariffs foreign aid cuts to the developing world, and unwavering support the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The Trump regime has ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti, stripping legal protections from some 350,000 Haitians, a move that will trigger mass deportations and widespread family separations. This is in addition to those from nations in the Global South whose protections have already expired or been terminated.Furthermore, TPS protections for Somali, Ethiopian, and South Sudan nationals are in the crosshairs, currently stayed only by temporary federal court orders, orders that Trump and his apparatchiks routinely ignore.
Institutions that once defined and enlivened American ideals are under assault. Agencies charged with advancing America’s deferred ideals are defunded or, like the Smithsonian Institution, labeled “anti-white” and disclaimed. Meanwhile, those who have promoted these ideals or benefited from their efforts are denied promotions or fired outright under the pretext that they are unqualified for their positions. All the while the president and his cabinet of cronies deem themselves eminently qualified for theirs, despite ample evidence to the contrary. One is tempted to invoke the Peter Principle, but that concept applies to competent people who are gradually promoted until they reach a level of incompetence; here, however, the leadership is incompetent from the outset, insulated from failure by its whiteness and proximity to power.
Those who have assimilated still face hostility. If your name is Obama, Mamdani, or El-Sayed, it proves that the new racism isn’t so new after all, only more vociferous and xenophobic, even when you are a citizen – by birth or naturalization. Indeed, simply having an Arabic-sounding name is enough to get you booed, even if you are a fallen police officer, accused of incest, or labeled a terrorist or a communist. Ilhan Omar, in particular, has become a magnet for right-wing-fueled, spurious rumors, some of which are spewed by Trump himself, including the smear that she married her brother. At one point, Trump, deploying his usual disclaimer, said he “knows nothing about it,” although recently he appears to have become more “informed” – even if that information, like his knowledge of Somali society, is patently false and betrays the abysmal depths of his ignorance.
This escalation of racist rhetoric has largely been met by Republicans with indifference, when not encouraged outright, including from MAGA and, disturbingly, the party’s own “rainbow coalition” of black-, brown- and yellow-faced collaborators. Indeed, the only time the party seems to appreciate diversity is when minorities from the groups it despises advance its white nationalist, Christian nationalist, and Zionist agendas, or remain silent about its bigotry.
Such taciturnity has plagued the GOP before – and even been criticized by its own members. In 2019, seventeen months after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march in Virginia, Senator Tim Scott, voicing his concern over a rash of anti-black physical attacks, the vocal advocacy of white supremacy by then-Rep. Steve King, and the lack of response to them by members of his party, lamented:
“Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism – it is because of our silence when things like this are said. Immigration is the perfect example, in which somehow our affection for the rule of law has become conflated with a perceived racism against brown and black people.
“I do support border security not because I want to keep certain ethnicities out of our nation, but because I support enforcing our laws. I do not care if you come from Canada, France or Honduras; if you break our laws, there should be consequences. But it has become almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation along those lines. That’s in part why I laid out my agenda on civility, fairness and opportunity on Thursday on the floor of the Senate (emphasis added).”
Yet, Scott himself has since failed to find his voice to call out Trump’s overt racism. Instead, during the 2024 presidential campaign, he professed to love him, endorsing Trump as a president who “doesn’t see black or white.” To be fair, Scott did voice his objection to Trump’s reposting to Truth Social of a meme that depicted the Obamas as apes, saying he was “praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Still, he needn’t have solicited divine intervention to determine the image’s lack of authenticity, since the Obamas are clearly not apes, though the right apparently hasn’t gotten the memo. And if Scott thinks that the meme was the most racist thing to come out of the White House, he must be spending most of his time in the same rehab wing Mitch McConnell occupies, or be equally brain-dead.
One wonders if Scott is equally passionate about ensuring that those lawbreakers face consequences even when they occupy the Oval Office and other positions of power. Despite his earlier reprimand of his party, he has held his tongue. Even in these inflationary times, it seems the price of handkerchiefs is still relatively cheap. Apparently, they are being discounted and sold right next to red caps and white hoods.
If you are white, rich, and racist – move over James Weldon Johnson; we seem to have found the new national anthem of the right – an “affection for the rule of law” has never been the standard to which your conduct is held. This is certainly the case today, when members of the albocracy are free to grift no-bid federal contracts and to have their brainchild AI generate sexualized images of children. Meanwhile, as immigrants are demonized, scapegoated, deported, and killed for allegedly failing to assimilate American values, homegrown America’s homegrown “patriots” are allowed to violate those values with impunity – escaping liability even when found guilty, like the pardoned, red-blooded insurrectionists who, unlike Trump’s imagined Reflecting Pool vandals, actually vandalized the Capitol, attacked police, and defecated in its halls. A literal right-wing shitshow, though corporate media spared us the sight of such smears.
We live in a time when trying to get America to fulfill its ideals is considered traitorous; when to acknowledge that America has failed to realize those ideals, even as generations have strived to attain them, and to teach about and celebrate those who fought and died to hold the nation to its promises, is branded un-American, a betrayal of white identity by those who disingenuously cast themselves as the foes of identity politics.
Instead, that historical record – inspiring to some, threatening to others – is systematically erased. Institutions that teach it are defunded, memorials commemorating it, removed; and online government archives, redacted with a fervor that rivals the redactions of the Epstein files. This erasure serves a singular purpose: to obscure unpleasant facts behind a nationalist fiction that replaces truth with hagiography and shields the guilty from justice. By these actions, our government not only protects pedophiles; it promotes and beatifies racists as well.
Unfortunately, some progressives view the overhyped “MAGA civil war” as a blueprint for a “Unite the Right and the Left” coalition to defeat Trumpism, as if these newly “woke” social injustice warriors will prove to be reliable allies. They naively ignore an elemental truth: anti-Trumpism is not anti-racism. Nick Fuentes, Megyn Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson may have grown disaffected with Trump and MAGA, but they remain worshipers at the altar of white supremacy, and, in the case of Candace Owens, YouTube’s very own Clayton Bigsby, self-hating anti-blackness. And while Carlson may have cut ties with Trump over the Epstein files and the Iran War, there is no evidence he has abandoned his self-professed discomfort with black pilots. That they have begun to question Trump on a number of issues does not mean they are people who can be reasoned with on the matter of race and racism; it means only that they will likely invest their hatreds in a new messiah, who may arise from their own ranks.
Nonetheless, some on the left seem to believe these “renegades” are not only reasonable but redeemable, if only on the chessboard. If their strategy is to forge a temporary alliance to defeat Trump, it is fatally flawed. Even if successful, it ignores the real issue: Trump is a symptom of America’s racism, not its cause. He has simply weaponized that racism, cracking open the woodwork so that these peacock tribalists can strut out to take their place in the sun. When Trump is gone, the racism he fomented and nurtured will remain, newly buttressed by the unmerited credibility their leftist facilitators have given them. Old proverbs aside, sometimes the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.
Notes
[1] See columnist and political analyst Kirsten Powers’ account of Kelly’s history of racist statements and her on-air confrontation with the podcaster over her take on the New Black Panthers.
[2] I have chosen not to capitalize “black” until there is substantive reform of American police enforcement and the criminal justice system that results in the criminal prosecution of those who use excessive force and a systemic, long-term reduction in the number of police killings and the brutalization of black people.
[3] The rationale behind this targeted rhetoric is a Minnesota federal child-nutrition program fraud scheme estimated at $250 million, with subsequent investigations into state-run Medicaid services estimated at up to $9 billion in losses. In his State of the Union address, Trump – who has never met a number he didn’t inflate, excluding that of soldiers killed in his Iran War – put the amount at a whopping $19 billion. According to the White House, the case involved 85 defendants of Somali descent, of whom 64 have been convicted. Yet an entire community has been tarred as scammers. Even if every defendant were guilty, it would account for only 0.08% of Minnesota’s Somali residents and 0.3% of the total U.S. Somali population. In contrast, one man – ignoring a cadre of money-laundering associates and relatives – is responsible for grifting billions of dollars for “beautification” projects ($1.2 billion), an on-again, off-again “anti-weaponization” slush fund ($1.8 billion), a $150 billion boondoggle for an anachronistic “Golden Fleet” of “Trump-class” battleships, and additional billions in defense contracts whose procurement processes raise questions about potential fraud. Yet no one is telling Scottish-Germans to get the hell out of the country or deporting them en masse. Similarly, Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind of the Minnesota fraud, is white, though her ethnicity has been ignored. Were it made public, it is unlikely MAGA would be demanding that all those sharing her lineage be candidates for mass deportation.
[4] In some ways, conservative Indian Americans are repeating the Thinds of their fathers, with the same outcome. In a landmark 1923 Supreme Court case, United States v. Thind, Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian Sikh immigrant, sued the United States to secure naturalization, arguing that East Indians were white because as “Aryans” they belonged to the “Caucasian race.” Thind lost his case, with the Court ruling that the “common man” did not view a “Hindu” as a “free white person,” adding that “the original framers of the law . . . intended to include only the type of man whom they knew as white.” Today that common man is Republican.
