Welcome to Black History Month 2026.
President Trump posted a video on his social media site Thursday that included animated images depicting former President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
The White House took down the post on Friday, initially saying it was nothing more than a meme and later saying it was a staff member’s mistake. certainly.
But while legitimate outrage at such blatant racism can devolve into a brief media circus (because we all know something else will show up in about three minutes), let’s take a deeper look at why this video is more than an affront to everything America stands for, or should stand for.
It’s no accident that a photo of the Obamas is embedded deeply in a video about a voter fraud conspiracy in the 2020 election (which, if I need to say it again, is untrue). The video is an escalation of possible attacks on voting rights and voting rights in the midterm elections.
“Of course, it’s about voting,” Melina Abdullah told me on Friday. She is a professor at Cal State Los Angeles and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles.
Read more: Trump refuses to apologize after sharing racist image of Obamas: ‘I didn’t make a mistake’
“This is not just about the Obamas,” added Brian Levin, professor emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino and founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. “It’s about those [perceived as] Undermining our elections and democracy. “
I met Levine the day after he wrote a chapter on authoritarianism for a new book that happens to explore how discrimination and the imposition of social hierarchies are tied to power.
Let me summarize. Vulnerable groups are seen as dangerous and unfit to be full citizens, so a small elite can justify power by any means necessary to protect society from these vile and sordid influences.
Let me make this message simpler: Black and brown people are bad people and should not be allowed to participate in democracy because they do not deserve rights.
What’s the outcome at the ballot box?
All the talk about voter ID and election integrity is really about discouraging people from voting — people who legally have the right to vote. Those least likely to obtain proof of citizenship (which may require a passport or birth certificate, as well as the money and knowledge to obtain such documents) are typically black or brown people. They are also often poor, or poorer, so have less time and money to spend obtaining documents, and live in urban areas where polling places are shared.
Is it too far-fetched to imagine some form of federal oversight of these types of polling places, denying — or simply intimidating — legitimate voters who have long formed a powerful Democratic base?
Hope this never happens. But Levine and Abdullah said the current undermining of the legitimacy of black and brown voters is systemic and concerning.
Levin said Trump’s latest video is “part of a larger swath of paranoia and conspiracy related to elections, immigration and Black people, and it’s important to denounce the way these pieces of the puzzle are being pieced together to label African Americans and immigrants as a threat to democracy when it comes to voting.”
The premise of the video is that Democrats were involved in a complex, decades-long scheme to steal the election. It’s presented as a documentary, with images of the Obamas inserted oddly, almost as subliminal flashes near the end.
If you missed the white supremacist posts that are now commonplace in official communications from governments like the Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security, let me assure you that Levine is right and this primate video is indeed part of the “fire dragon” of white nationalist rhetoric, not just from Trump, but from across the federal government.
For example, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has shifted its focus toward penalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Just this week, another federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, opened an investigation into Nike for alleged discrimination in hiring against white people.
“This wasn’t even a dog whistle, but a carbon copy of the exact same terminology that I’ve seen on white supremacist and neo-Nazi websites for decades,” Levine said.
I don’t intend to warn black people about racism because that’s ridiculous and insulting, but I do warn the rest of us because, ultimately, authoritarianism targets everyone. The video makes clear that Trump’s vision for America is one in which every non-white group, and indeed every disadvantaged group, is a second-class citizen.
“He gives a lot of credit to a group of people who want to take this country back to a time when violent white supremacy was legally permitted,” Abdullah said. “What they mean by that is a return to the old oppressive racism that existed before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
Read more: Chabria: MAGA launches another Save the Children campaign for LGBTQ+ families
Levin said the message “resonates with a large portion of his base” and could have violent results if continually fed into the system.
Levin gave the example of Trump tweeting “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” during protests over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, a phrase that has a history of violence and racism.
Levine said that black people have been the main target of hate crimes in the United States, but after that tweet, it was the “worst day” for racial violence.
He added: “When high-ranking communicators like the president spread images about bias, these stereotypes and conspiracy theories are created and become the basis for further conspiracy theories and aggression.”
Abdullah said she worries that even if voter suppression is not officially sanctioned, powerful conspiracy theorists will take action anyway.
“So those so-called watchdogs, self-appointed watchdogs … they were going to pull people off the electoral rolls, so that’s what he was deliberately inciting,” she said.
Stay tuned, folks, because the far-right Republicans running this show are paying close attention to this issue. The midterm elections must go smoothly for them to remain in power.
The easiest way to ensure an outcome is to allow only those voters who see things their way.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.