Former President Donald Trump’s first-born is giving daddy a run for his racist money. Racist dog whistles have long been the elder Trump’s bread and butter, but it seems Donald Trump Jr. is tossing out the whistle and saying the quiet part out loud. The 46-year-old nepo baby stirred up widespread backlash in the wake of the 58th Super Bowl, following yet another pitiful attempt at humor.
Eight years of embarrassing antics have largely lead the Trump family to fade into background irritants, but occasionally a member of the criminal clan breaks from this tradition to enter the foreground. That’s precisely what Trump Jr. managed with an extremely uninspired and misogynist “joke” at former First Lady Michelle Obama’s expense.
Trump Jr. shared an image of former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Levon Kirkland to his Instagram with a half-cooked caption comparing him to the former first lady. “I found this rare Michelle Obama rookie card,” the pathetic attempt at a political meme reads, alongside a brief addition from Trump Jr. that he’s enjoying “a little Super Bowl nostalgia.” He even added a carefully misspelled note to fact checkers at the bottom, in his final attempt (and failure) at humor. “Deer fact checkers I’m told that this is a joke, so please treat it accordingly though I personally am not 100% sure.”
No one is ever really shocked at the disgustingly contemptible antics the Trump family makes a career out of, these days, but somehow Trump Jr. still managed to incite fury with his post, which was all but instantly deemed “stupid” and “hate filled” by commenters.
Over on Twitter/X, where a screenshot of the post was shared by independent journalist Aaron Rupar noting the “insane levels of racist misogyny on Don Jr’s Instagram page,” people were quick to pile on. These attacks aimed at the former First Lady — whose husband hasn’t been in office for going on a decade, by the way — are nothing new, but they are easily exposing just how unoriginal, bigoted, and (yes, I’m saying it) deplorable these people are. Trump Jr. is appealing to a very specific sect of people with that post, and they’re eating it up. Everyone else is stuck between second-hand embarrassment — really Don, you think that’s somehow funny? — and disgust at the fully adult eldest Trump child’s utter adolescence.
But this is life in 2024. The disgraced son of a disgraced president retains enough of a platform to share queasy, pointless attacks just to be controversial. And not in a way that elicits any kind of discourse, intelligent thought, or actual political action — just in a way that’s petty and mean. But that’s fitting for the petty and mean Trump family, which has exactly zero relevance in a world that actually gets along.
