Trump’s erratic conduct points to one thing

I try to ignore Trump’s posts because every one of them is filled with his noxious bloviation. But sometimes his posts are so revolting that I can’t just let them pass. The loathsome sociopath in the Oval Office has to be held accountable. Late Thursday — which happened to be the fifth day of Black History Month — at exactly 11:44 pm, Trump posted a video that included a depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys.Now, we all know Trump is a loathsome human being. His insults have become an odious staple of his presidency. You may remember his AI-generated video of himself as a fighter pilot dumping excrement on No Kings Day protesters. Or his AI-generated video of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries as mariachi performers.Yesterday, the White House press secretary hurried into the White House press room with her usual pooper-scooper to clean up from last night’s racist post — calling it nothing but “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” and adding, for good measure: “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”Well, it turns out that plenty of Republican members of Congress were outraged, too — and they didn’t fake it. “The most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” posted South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate. “A reasonable person sees the racist context in this,” posted Nebraska Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. “Totally unacceptable,” posted Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker. “Wrong and incredibly offensive,” posted New York Republican congressman Mike Lawler. “Offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable,” posted Ohio Republican congressman Mike Turner. What happened then? Just before noon today, Eastern Time — some 12 hours after Trump posted his piece of s— — the White House said the post had been deleted. No apology offered, of course. The White House blamed an unnamed “White House staffer” for it. But you and I and anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s outbursts of bigoted offal over the past months knows it came from him. Four observations. First, you know Trump is going to unload his vitriol whenever he feels upstaged by Obama (or Biden) or any other prominent critic. Last weekend, at the same time “Melania” was released, Netflix views of Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary “Becoming” surged by more than 13,000 percent. Second, even Republican senators and representatives are now unafraid to publicly accuse Trump of being a bigot. That’s progress. Third, when congressional Republicans make a ruckus, Trump backs down. Fourth, this incident adds to the accumulating evidence that Trump is losing his mind. Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

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