We Didn’t Survive the Closet to Stay Silent Now 

Trump came down that escalator in 2015 and immediately went after immigrants. Called them rapists and criminals. We all watched it. Most of us thought, well, that’s as ugly as it gets. Then he mocked a disabled reporter on national television. Then he went after Gold Star families. Then veterans. Every time you thought he’d found the floor, he brought a shovel. Going to the basement wasn’t a metaphor that day. It was his mission statement.

And this week, the President of the United States posted a video portraying the Obamas as monkeys. The White House called it a Lion King meme and told everyone to stop the “fake outrage.” When that didn’t work, they blamed a staffer, the same playbook he used in 2015 when he blamed an intern. He never apologized. He never does.

Michelle Obama once told us, “When they go low, we go high.” They just went lower than she ever imagined. And still, she was right.

I’m the publisher of OutSmart, an LGBTQ+ publication in Houston, and I’m an Asian American. Nobody needs to draw me a diagram of how racists see people who don’t look like them. I already know. Our community knows. We’ve been called predators, groomers, deviants, not by accident, but on purpose. Because once you convince people that someone isn’t fully human, you can do anything to them and half the country will look the other way.

The entire Republican Party ran this same play against trans people. They turned a bathroom into a national emergency, the same way segregationists turned water fountains into a moral crusade.

And comparing Black people to monkeys? That’s not new. That goes back centuries. It was used to justify slavery. It was used to justify lynching. And now it’s being posted from the White House. It’s a playbook. It has always been a playbook. And racists never stop at one group. They work their way down the list.

And don’t tell me this was just a distraction from the Epstein files. Even if that’s what you believe, think about what you’re actually saying. You’re saying it’s fine for the president to use racism as a smoke screen. You’re handing a hall pass to the one person who should be held the most accountable. That’s not a defense of him. That’s an indictment of YOU. And if you’re in Congress and you haven’t said a word about this yet—by name, out loud—don’t act shocked by what comes next. You had your chance.

If you’re still quiet about all of this, I have to assume you’re okay with it. And if you’re okay with it, you need to look at history, because every fascist regime that ever rose to power did so while good people told themselves it wasn’t that bad yet. The people who stayed quiet last time are not remembered kindly. How far does this have to go before you decide you’ve seen enough?