I have heard many dismiss President Donald Trump as a racist. In response, he has claimed, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!”
Why shouldn’t I take him at his word? After all, I do not know what is in his heart. Only God does.
Hence, I lack the hubris to ascertain with any certainty if he is, indeed, a racist. Still, I wonder, can a tree ever be known by its fruit? Is racism what racism does?
Trump’s versatility, his hollow patriotism, and the genuine power of simplistic, nonsensical words invigorate those who are mostly deficient in basic qualities associated with morality and decency.
Although lacking an ethical compass, his skillful simoniacal trading of political influence, posts and pardons to enrich himself, and the teflonic ease with which he dispenses verifiable seditious accusations, establish the foundation of his appeal. His obstinate usage of appointed sycophants to bring the full weight of the government against those who contest his self-serving trajectory, along with his total lack of scruples to even hide his public shame, deepens that pull. Together, these forces conspire to lure cultish MAGA followers to forgive him of all guilt, seeing in this self-exultant political sinner their atonement for their own unrestrained odium for all that falls short of the white ideal.
In this country, where minoritized communities have always been familiar with the aggression of white supremacy, Trump callously pursues people of color as if on steroids. He does so without the façade of charity, heartlessly dismantling with implacable passion any governmental design established to provide the minimum relief and protection from the onslaught of normalized and legitimized white affirmative action. His abnormal, aggressive temperament dazzles followers while seducing foes to the futility of resistance.
He may very well not be a racist, but instead a political animal playing to the worst impulses of the U.S. psyche. Nevertheless, there is no denying he has done and said racist things.
In fact, his political success is dependent on racism and ethnic discrimination. It flows like an everlasting stream, dooming any domestic hope of fostering a more perfect union, even while spouting high-sounding, empty patriotic rhetoric.
So, is he a racist?
When Trump refers to all members of a particular ethnic group as “garbage,” then maybe Trump is a racist.
When his Justice Department ends “disparate impact analysis,” a decades-old civil rights law allowing statistical disparities to prove the existence of racial discrimination, then maybe Trump is a racist.
When Trump’s Interior Department, following his executive order to remove all items promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, removed from Margraten Cemetery displays highlighting Black soldiers’ contributions to liberating the Netherlands during World War II, it marked a clear pattern. That same administration removed articles from the Arlington Cemetery website featuring Latine and Black service members who paid the ultimate price and flagged for removal a slavery memorial from Independence Mall in Philadelphia. Taken together, these actions suggest that Trump might be a racist.
When his State Department, in an effort to stamp out diversity, returns to using the traditional Times New Roman typeface rather than the recently adopted Calibri type designed to improve accessibility to readers with disabilities, then maybe Trump is a racist.
When Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services instructs Head Start early childhood program funding applicants not to use words like “accessible,” “belong,” “Black,” “minority,” “trauma,” “tribal,” etc., then maybe Trump is a racist.
When Trump warns Europe that due to migration, they are endangered of “civilizational erasure” by losing white homogeneity, then Trump might be a racist.
When Trump commits to supporting white supremacist far-right hate political groups in Europe, then he might be a racist.
When Trump seeks to make “remigration” or “reverse migration” federal policy, a concept which means ethnically cleansing or forcibly deporting everyone who is not white from traditionally white nations, then Trump might be a racist.
When Trump opens the doors for white Afrikaners, under the preposterous pretense of them suffering genocide at the hands of Blacks, and uses this falsehood to punish South Africa, then maybe Trump is a racist.
When hate groups like the Proud Boys, the Aryan Freedom Network, and other neo-Nazi U.S. groups praise Trump and yet, Trump refuses to reject their endorsement or disavow their race-based policies, then Trump might be a racist.
When he takes pride in the fact that, since the start of his second term, of the more than 600,000 deported, 70% were among the “worst of the worst” criminals, the claim initially appears authoritative. Only later does it emerge that only about 7% of those booked by ICE had a serious or violent conviction, yet almost all were nonwhite. Taken together, these facts suggest maybe Trump might be a racist.
Almost all these inanities occurred in the last 30 days of 2025, not over decades of public life! Flooding the zone with so much idiocy makes coordinating resistance challenging.
Trump may very well be accurate when passionately exclaiming that he does not have a racist bone in his body. But in the final analysis, what does it really matter if he is or isn’t a racist?
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
