As a semi-professional opinion writer with a small following, it’s rare I find myself consulting style manuals about a decision. Today’s topic was an exception. As the issue is a slur used by the President of the United States, I will be using the word when quoting, and shortening it elsewhere.

Donald Trump is not capable of empathy. He is not capable of promoting character. He can only express animus which makes him absurdly unsuited for the easiest of all tasks for an elected official - sending well wishes on holidays. Some of his previous holiday statements:

Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country. Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten! Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing -- But to him, and to the person that ran and manipulated the Auto Pen (perhaps our REAL President!), and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!! (Easter 2025)

I hope everyone even the Fake News Media is having a great Christmas! (Christmas 2018)

Happy 4th of July to everyone, including the haters and losers! (2014)

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love! (2016)

I'd like to wish all of my friends--and even my many enemies--a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. (2013)

I would like to wish all fathers, even the haters and losers, a very happy Fathers Day. (2014)

I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th (2013, yes, he really said this about the 9/11 attack)

You should get the picture by now. Completely devoid of empathy, Donald Trump is incapable of merely saying “I hope everyone is well on this special day.”

The bar here could not be lower, but Donald Trump still found a way to outdo himself with his vile and racist Thanksgiving screed last month. Below you will find his Truth Social (it is downright bizarre that the president runs a social media company while also dealing with regulation of social media companies, but we will have a corruption article eventually tackling this one) in its entirety. You should read all of this:

…Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!

(The following is from a separate post he made a minute later)

A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being “Politically Correct,” and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration. The official United States Foreign population stands at 53 million people (Census), most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels. They and their children are supported through massive payments from Patriotic American Citizens who, because of their beautiful hearts, do not want to openly complain or cause trouble in any way, shape, or form. They put up with what has happened to our Country, but it’s eating them alive to do so! A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family. The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.). As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst “Congressman/woman” in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how “badly” she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…

A handful of other Republicans posted about immigration on Thanksgiving, completely oblivious as the president was here, to the idea that the immigrants who needed help at the first Thanksgiving WERE THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS and the group offering them aid were the local indigenous nations.

He used a holiday whose explicit purpose is giving thanks and welcoming immigrants to viciously attack immigrants.

Facing zero consequences for his vile campaign lie that Somali immigrants were stealing pets and eating them, he used the holiday of Thanksgiving to say Somali immigrants are gang members, drug dealers, mental patients, etc… Rather than saying what he was grateful for (he has never been grateful to anyone not named Donald Trump in his entire life), he attacked Representative Ilhan Omar, accusing her of both being here illegally and of incest. This is nothing new. Trump’s entire political career was based on his lies about Barack Obama being secretly born in Kenya.

There is an alarming term here, “reverse migration.” DHS itself has posted about the need for the shorter version of the term, “remigration.”

Remigration has a clinical use for statisticians, but in the past few decades it has been adopted by the far right in Europe to refer to one evil thing - getting non-white people to move to the countries they “came” from. Scare quotes here as they don’t actually care if someone was born in the country they want them out of. The goal of remigration is simple - having an all white country.

It does not matter to Donald Trump that Ilhan Omar is a US citizen. It matters to Donald Trump that she isn’t white. He’s comfortable saying people like her need to go back “where they came from” because he knows his racist base will salivate over the idea and that elected Republicans will pretend not to know he said it. He’s also said representatives who were born right here in America need to return to the country “from which they came.” It’s a trap to point out he’s said these things about American-born politicians. The point here is just racism, and nothing else.

But in this long-winded lie about Somali immigrants in Minnesota, Trump also attacked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as “seriously retarded.”

The President of the United States, who infamously mocked the physical disability of journalist Sergei Kovaleski in 2015, is now openly using a slur against people with intellectual disabilities to describe his critics.

If Donald Trump were a normal person, capable of empathy and decorum, one could still rip every single one of his policy positions to shreds.

But at a more basic level, the president should be, at a bare minimum, a decent person. We should not be waiting on Christmas morning this year to see which group the president will spend his Christmas greeting attacking. But I guarantee you that’s going to happen.

Republicans in the House and Senate replied the same way they always do to Trump’s bigotry. Speaker Mike Johnson only offered a weak “Well, look, that’s not the word I would choose. I think his reaction was probably a spontaneous one to the enormous amount of fraud that was announced there.” (He’s lying about the fraud.) Senator Bill Cassidy said he couldn’t comment as he had not read what the president wrote. The Republicans under Trump have been huge fans of Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru - respectively, see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

Elated over his father’s use of the r-word slur, Donald Trump Jr. posted an AI generated image of a children’s book character using it against a handcuffed Tim Walz.

Many of us, myself included, have struggled to understand how so many in the country came to support a man so openly bigoted. It’s a large and complicated question but at least part of the answer is that a large number of Americans are fine saying immigrants steal pets to eat them, regardless of whether it is true. And those same people are elated at the permission they’ve now been given to use the r-word again.

I believe it’s likely Donald Trump dies of natural causes before this term is over. But even if he does not, I believe America is going to survive Trumpism. For reasons I cannot fathom, Donald Trump is extremely charismatic to his base, and so far no one has been able to replicate that. However, that base is over the moon when he lies about immigrants and talks about the need to get anyone who isn’t white out of the country. His base loves that he just used the r-word to describe a critic.

In fact, they took what he said to heart. People have been driving by Tim Walz’s home shouting the slur at the house.

Gus Walz, Tim’s son, has a learning disorder.

I don’t know what the path through that sort of hate is. I don’t know how you convince people who are excited by the president’s lies about immigrants and slur usage that these are abominable actions.

But there HAVE been some cracks in the facade. As always, there are reasons for hope.

In the bizarre mid-census redistricting battle Trump kicked off, it’s not been clear whether Republicans in Indiana would put out a new gerrymandered map. It’s cleared the committee, but it is not certain if it will be passed into law.

Indiana state Senator Michael Bohacek, a Republican, has a daughter with Down Syndrome. Bohacek has announced he will not be supporting the gerrymander, at least in part because of Trump’s bigotry. I leave you with his words, in opposition to the hatred and slurs of President Trump:

Many of you have asked my position on redistricting. I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter. Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome. This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences. I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.