Thursday, October 1, 2026
There are so many court cases involving President Trump that it’s extremely difficult to keep track, let alone determine which are the most significant. One case struck me as a telling moment in the second Trump administration, in that it illustrates something about the president that is undeniable. He is racist.
In January, a federal judge — appointed by a Republican conservative president, no less — admonished the Trump administration for its decision to remove displays about George Washington’s ownership of enslaved people at a monument on the site of his former house in Philadelphia. By removing references to slavery, the move was clearly part of the administration’s efforts to reshape how American history is portrayed at many federal monuments and institutions.
Judge Cynthia M. Rufe cited George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” in her order to temporarily restore the displays. “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance Is Strength,’” Rufe wrote, “this court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. … It does not. … Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history.”
However, in a sharp blow to Philadelphia’s efforts to maintain some control over the site, a three-judge appeals panel in June threw out the decision, ruling that the administration’s move to take down the displays did not amount to a formal agency rule or decision that a federal court could scrutinize.
Now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that paves the way for the deportation of legal immigrants from Haiti and Syria who have Temporary Protected Status, we are getting a fresh reminder of the president’s virulent racism. While the majority opinion shamefully insisted that Trump’s abuse of Haitians has nothing to do with race, in her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan called it “plain to see” that race played a role in the decision to terminate the TPS designation for Haiti.
In reference to baseless claims about Haitian immigrants made by Trump on a number of occasions about the consumption of people’s pets and the spreading of infectious diseases, along with vile descriptions of their home country, Kagan concluded that “the evidence that the Haiti TPS beneficiaries “have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” But those “statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike,” she added, “that race entered into the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country.”
Trump 2.0 is riddled with instances of blatant racism by the president and his sycophants. Perhaps the most egregious example came when he sank even lower in terms of character than you’d think humanly possible in posting a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Trump managed to make matters worse with a refusal to apologize despite criticism from loyalists in his own party.
All of this, of course, should come as absolutely no surprise to any rationally minded, clear-thinking American of good faith. It was Trump, after all, who, before he was even considered for the Republican nomination the first time around, built his political career with racist lies, beginning with allegations that Obama wasn’t born in the United States.
When he took office for the second time, he wasted no time catering to his base with policy decisions on housing, health care, food assistance and public education, which the Center for Progressive Reform aptly described as “systematically dehumanizing, disenfranchising, and stealing from Black Americans.”
President Bill Clinton once said that the cause of justice had no greater co-worker than Jesse Jackson. Jackson’s recent passing was a reminder that we must build on his legacy and that of his mentor, the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We must be better than the current occupant of the White House and continue to fight for a better America.
Charles Lavine represents the 13th Assembly District and is chairman of the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
