Trump’s racism is tired on two levels

Donald Trump posting a video portraying the Obamas as apes was disgusting. It was also another sign that our 79-year-old president is aging rapidly. He used to be a more energetic troll, but that was a lackluster effort from a man who clearly can’t be bothered to be even slightly coy about his racism. 

It’s much the same story with Trump’s response to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, which I am sure he did not watch. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” he protested on Truth Social. Obviously false, as Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S. Even by Trump standards, that racism was just lazy. Even his dumbest voters would probably be embarrassed to say that, after a dozen beers. But Trump is so tired, he can’t even put energy into saying racist stuff online, which for years now has been his favored pastime. 

How worried should we be about the midterms?

At the real risk of being premature and wrong, I don’t think Trump has any coherent plan to steal the midterm elections. This isn’t the East Wing of the White House, where he can bulldoze it illegally overnight and no one will hold him accountable. Simply commanding Republicans to “nationalize” elections won’t work, because there’s really no way to do that. 

It’s likely that the raid on Georgia election offices wasn’t about a larger plan to steal the election, but more about Tulsi Gabbard’s reality TV antics aimed at pleasing her narcissistic boss. Trump’s lies about election fraud may be the first stage of some election-theft process. But it seems likelier to me that he’s preemptively coping with likely defeat in the midterms, because preserving his fragile ego is more important to him than actually winning elections. 

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Steve Bannon does not have the ability to surround the polls with ICE agents. He is talking shit in hopes people spread it, and that his words scare people out of voting. But it’s also true that if Republicans get whipped into enough of a frenzy, some might opt into committing crimes to defraud voters on a local level. We saw that in 2020, when many Republican officials on the state level tried to interfere with a fair vote count.

On the whole, my advice is not to get hysterical, which could send a “don’t vote” message to others. Readers who want to help should consider volunteering to help manage elections, especially since the infrastructure is understaffed in so many places. The weaker the system, the more opportunities for monkey business. That can be countered by good, honest people working at the polls and counting ballots. 

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Bad Bunny vs. Charlie Kirk on weddings

I wrote a column about how tired Kid Rock’s “alternative” halftime for TPUSA was, but after it was published I had another thought about the vast gulf between that soulless right-wing crap and the electric Bad Bunny set at the real Super Bowl halftime. After Kid Rock played, TPUSA ran a video of Charlie Kirk scolding people to get married and have kids. But Bad Bunny had a real couple get married at his show. 

You couldn’t have a better symbol of the emotional undercurrents driving the political divide. For all their talk about marriage, the right treats it not as a source of love and happiness, but as a disciplinary device. There’s an air of the frog march to Kirk’s chastising us from beyond the grave to get hitched whether we want to or not, and whether or not we’ve found someone we love. To him, it was a duty, not a pleasure. 

In contrast, the couple who got married at the Super Bowl were genuinely fun to watch. You could tell they were ecstatic, and Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga seemed really happy for them. It was a sly rebuttal to the endless right-wing scolding about how young people don’t want to get married anymore. Plenty of them do! They just want it to be with the right person for the right reasons. 

For all the right’s talk about freedom, this was another reminder of how much they loathe it. Kirk’s talk about marriage and children was always phrased as a commandment, and a dreary one at that. The wedding on Bad Bunny’s stage was a true celebration of freedom, something that makes the Trumpist right itchy. 

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What we're reading this week

• “You Know, You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy,’” Jude Doyle, The Many Unsolicited Opinions of Jude Doyle

• “This Is Just Who Trump Is,” Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

• Trump Rages at Bad Bunny — and Accidentally Exposes a Big MAGA Weakness,” Greg Sargent, New Republic

• “‘Together, We Are America,’” Spencer Kornhaber, Atlantic

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