If there is a defining characteristic of President Donald Trump’s second term — aside from shameless self-enrichment out of the executive branch — I’d argue it’s the proliferation of unabashed and outspoken racism espoused by the president and many of his most loyal followers.
The online attacks launched by Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani demonstrated this in stark relief, such as here:
Zohran "little muhammad" Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.
— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) June 26, 2025
Attached is my letter to @AGPamBondi. pic.twitter.com/RWCZm67VOr
As did many of the other GOP responses to Mamdani’s Democratic primary victory this week, which my MSNBC colleague Steve Benen highlighted for MaddowBlog. This reactionary post from Charlie Kirk, which reads like Ku Klux Klan propaganda, is a prime example:
The lesson from New York City is that BOTH illegal and legal immigration can ruin your country. It’s not just the open border, it’s also our suicidal mass LEGAL migration policies bringing in over 1 million people a year: green cards, chain migration, refugee resettlement, anchor…
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 25, 2025
During a recent conversation with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, author Ta-Nehisi Coates said that one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest successes has fallen apart in the Trump era: People no longer feel ashamed to express “open bigotry.” Coates added that one of Trump’s most successful political instincts has been his bet that conservative voters are broadly more comfortable with the racist rhetoric that previous Republicans have flirted with a bit more obliquely.
Indeed, this administration has spent its opening months seemingly grooming the MAGA movement to be OK with blatant racism — or, at minimum, accept it as a natural part of political discourse. Even when compared with Trump’s first administration, which promoted diversity programs and parted ways with a speechwriter after it was revealed he spoke at a conference attended by white nationalists, Trump 2.0 has been far more permissive of unabashed bigotry. Indeed, this administration has spent its opening months seemingly grooming the MAGA movement to be OK with blatant racism. Trump welcomed the aforementioned speechwriter, Darren Beattie, into his second administration despite the fact that he wrote last year that “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.” Trump’s administration rehired after initially firing a Department of Government Efficiency staffer who had called for the normalization of Indian hate. And a host of other figures in the administration have a history of promoting various other blatantly bigoted ideas. Trump himself has peddled false claims, spread broadly by white nationalists, that white people are facing systemic oppression in South Africa, and he has targeted an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that discredits racist pseudoscience. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security itself has spread propaganda promoted by overtly racist social media accounts, and his White House has frequently relied on cruel memes meant to dehumanize and mock nonwhite immigrants. To be clear, MAGA racism is not a new phenomenon. But the president certainly seems to have given his followers a green light to embrace and express any racist hate they may be feeling. And all of this has the feel of a far-right psyop — as if the administration is attempting to train Americans’ gag reflexes in such a way that grotesque exhibitions of bigotry that may have made them squeamish in the past no longer do so.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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