Donald Trump didn’t just ambush South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office this week. No, that only tells half the story. He humiliated him with calculated cruelty, broadcasting to the world that Black leaders, especially those from s**thole countries, will be treated with suspicion, hostility, and disdain.
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In a grotesque display of white grievance propaganda, Trump presented Ramaphosa with videos of Julius Malema, a far-left South African provocateur, and ranted about a so-called white genocide of Afrikaners, echoing long-debunked neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. Everyone in the room knew he was spewing lies — well, not everyone. Elon Musk was there, so he probably fed Trump some of the falsehoods.
Ramaphosa, God bless him, was the picture of composure and tried his best to bat down the nonsense. But the damage was done. For Black Americans watching and for people of color worldwide, this wasn't foreign policy gone wrong. It was much, much worse. It was personal. It was terrifying. And it showed Trump is done with dog whistles.
He is an out and out avowed racist, who at some point during the next three years is likely to don a white robe with a hood. I’m sure the Ku Klux Klan is in the process of announcing Trump as an honorary member.
Because this is who Trump is. This is who he’s always been. I spoke with his niece Mary Trump, and she confirmed her uncle’s long-held racist views. He is a man who sees whiteness as virtue and blackness as threat. He sees whiteness as being smart and blackness as being stupid. White means rich. Black means poor, and we all know how much Trump hates the poor.
A president who during his first term coddled neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, told four congresswomen of color to “go back” to their countries, and adores his Proud Boys. Now he’s bringing that worldview back to the White House with a vengeance.
Let’s go back to Charlottesville for a minute. Remember when Trump tried to couch his racism by saying there were “very fine” people on both sides? If Charlottesville were to happen today, Trump would only see one side.
This week’s meeting with the South African president was a blistering siren of more racism to come. It was just a start. Trump is preparing to officially welcome thousands of white South African “refugees,” a.k.a. Afrikaners who, by all credible accounts, are not fleeing war or political persecution but seeking economic opportunity.
The real reason they’re being fast-tracked? They’re white. As one administration source reportedly put it: “We’re prioritizing people who will assimilate into American culture.”
That’s Trumpian code for only Christian white conservatives need apply for citizen status in the United States.
Meanwhile, desperate asylum-seekers from Venezuela, El Salvador, and Congo, many of whom are LGBTQ+, Indigenous, or Afro-descended, are turned away, deported, or left to languish in inhumane conditions.
Some, like Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan man, have been deported to near-certain death in Salvadoran prisons, despite no criminal record. That’s not immigration policy. That is intended racism and state-sponsored cruelty.
This isn’t just Trump operating alone, because the equally racist Musk hovers in the background. Like he did this week in the Oval Office while Ramaphosa was being scolded. Musk has grossly made a sport of promoting “replacement theory” rhetoric while gutting diversity programs across his companies.
He reposts and lets flourish white nationalist content on X, mocks pronouns, and recently amplified conspiracies about Black South Africans “taking over.” Trump is clearly listening. Musk doesn’t just have his ear, he has Trump’s admiration for being so open about his racist views.
Musk doesn’t need to wear a hood. And neither does Trump.
But it doesn’t stop here. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as a former Fox News host, had a long record of inflammatory, racially charged statements. Hegseth has defended war criminals, attacked “woke” military policies, and ended diversity training at the Pentagon. Hegseth wants a military that has no women, queers, or people of color. Just white guy warriors.
Together, these white straight men are constructing a regime in which whiteness is power and everything else, Black, brown, queer, immigrant, Muslim, is something to be crushed. If Trump’s first term laid the foundation for this project, his second will bring the wrecking ball.
And the rest of the world is watching. Trump’s deferential treatment of Vladimir Putin stands in stark contrast to his disdain for democratic allies, especially those led by people of color. The message is clear and obvious, and that is if you are a white authoritarian, you’re in. If you’re a Black leader defending democracy, prepare to be humiliated.
To see Ramaphosa treated this way, in the people’s house no less, was to witness a grotesque inversion of American ideals. A sneering white American president berating a Black foreign dignitary with propaganda while rewarding white South Africans who share his racial paranoia.
But again, it’s worth repeating because it’s that serious. This is only the beginning.
Trump and his fellow klansmen, Musk, Hegseth, and of course we can’t forget Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, are orchestrating nothing short of a return to a white Christian nationalist America. An America where refugees must be white to be welcomed. Where diplomacy is a hammer used to shame Black and brown nations. Where “diversity” is a dirty word and history is rewritten to downplay slavery. It’s happening before our very eyes. An America where Black and brown lives are not only devalued, they are systematically excluded.
If this week showed us anything, it’s that a second Trump term won’t simply resume where the first left off. It will go much further, with more rage, more cruelty, and fewer guardrails.
For millions of Americans, especially people of color, what Trump unleashed in the Oval Office wasn’t just an insult to President Ramaphosa. It was a vision of the future and a chilling reminder that if we don't stop him, the America he's building will not include us.
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