We have a problem, actually several of them. On Oct. 10, 2024, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign reposted an old 13-second clip on the @kamalahq TikTok account with former president Donald Trump’s remarks at a Black conservative exposing his persistent and, let’s say, unelegant strategy of leveraging racial tensions for political gain.
At the Black Conservative Federation Honors Gala in Columbia, SC, in February, Trump posed an improper question to a rapt audience: “Would you rather have the Black president or the white president who got $1.7 billion off the price? I think they want the white guy right now.”
The unnecessary statement—part of a rambling anecdote about Air Force One negotiations absolutely no one cares about—exemplifies Trump’s penchant for casually racializing unimportant topics that mean nothing to flood the zone with foolishness. By framing the decision as a choice between a “Black president” (Obama) and a “white president” (himself), Trump reduces policy matters to wild racial comparisons.
The context of Trump’s speech, again addressing a Black conservative group, doesn’t excuse his rhetoric. If anything, it highlights his cynical approach of tailoring racially charged messages to specific audiences, attempting to show himself as the preeminent white savior for Black conservatives in search of one to quell their unhinged worries of liberal hegemony.
The reliable act-checking outlet Snopes’ analysis of the rhetoric falls woefully short in this rare instance. It focuses on the technical precision of the video’s initial (and subsequent) usage while somehow glossing over the destructive implications of Trump’s casual dog-whistling antics. Their report emphasizes that Trump didn’t directly reference Kamala Harris and that Biden was still the presumptive nominee at the time. However, this misses the great Canadian Yukon forest for the Charlie Brown Christman tree.
The real issue isn’t about specific targets or timelines. It’s about a former president and current candidate consistently using race as a political weapon to rev-up his base. Trump’s “white guy” comment feeds into a larger pattern of stoking racial resentments and anxieties among his base.
Snopes did its job as promised to its readers. However, there’s a blind spot in that its approach risks normalizing Trump’s unhinged behavior by treating it as just another thing to be fact-checked, checked off, and digitally filed away rather than readily identifying it as part of a treacherous trend. Their focus on contextual details—which @kamalahq could be conceivably taken to task for in its second usage—provides cover for Trump’s divisive tactics.
Trump’s history of racist dog whistles and outright bigotry demands we view these comments not as isolated gaffes but as part of a deliberate strategy to zone-flood with verbal excrement to exploit racial tensions for political gain.
