The Fake & Fraudulent Prophets Around the President
September 4, 2026 |
Daniel Henderson
I don’t like calling people racist…but let’s call this what it is…the Trump Administration is the most racist in modern American history. To be sure, Trump isn’t the only racist president we have had. Other presidents had the temerity to cloak their racism with code words and obscure language.
Trump, on the other hand, is bringing racism out of the closet into the mainstream once again.
From a racist-xenophobic immigration policy to ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in education and the federal government, to the erasure of Black and Indigenous history, to forcing an offensive name onto a professional league team, this administration is no longer hiding its white supremacist foundations. It is all out there to see.
The most recent example is Trump’s South Africa “refugee” program. Reuters reported on July 25 that:
In early July, the top official at the U.S. embassy in South Africa reached out to Washington asking for clarification on a contentious U.S. policy: could non-whites apply for a refugee program geared toward white South Africans if they met other requirements?
President Donald Trump’s February executive order establishing the program specified that it was for “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” referring to an ethnic group descended mostly from Dutch settlers.
In a diplomatic cable sent July 8, embassy Charge d’Affairs David Greene asked whether the embassy could process claims from other minority groups claiming race-based discrimination such as “coloured” South Africans who speak Afrikaans. In South Africa the term coloured refers to mixed-raced people, a classification created by the apartheid regime still in use today.
The answer came back days later in an email from Spencer Chretien, the highest-ranking official in the State Department’s refugee and migration bureau, saying the program is intended for white people.
Well, there it is…Chretien spoke the truth.
At the same time, Trump revoked over 200 work visas of immigrant workers at a food processing plant right here in my home state of Iowa. Trump has targeted individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, you know, the ones Trump calls “shit-hole countries.” These people entered the U.S. legally under a work authorization program working at the JBS pork processing plant in Ottumwa.
With their visas revoked, they will now be targeted for deportation. These are not criminal “undocumented” immigrants. This is an obvious power play to encourage white immigration and reduce non-white bodies in the United States.
Call it DEI for white people.
As I mentioned, I don’t like calling people racist. It is a term that is misunderstood and misused, much like the term “white.” But the evidence of the Trump administration’s overt racism is too open and public to ignore.
My goal today is to clarify what these terms mean and how I use them, and why the term racist does indeed apply to Donald Trump and many of his associates, like Steven Miller and Tom Homan.
Let me start with the language I have started to use. I no longer use the term “white” to refer to myself or anyone else with lighter colored skin. I use the term Euro-American. It refers to the point of origin of my ancestors, not the ideological status that it confers on those with white skin.
When we hear the word “white,” we often think of skin tone. But “white” isn’t primarily about biology or pigment at all…it’s about power: about who gets to belong, who gets to rule, and who gets to stay invisible.
Far from being a neutral racial descriptor, “white” is an idea, a carefully constructed category designed to define not only who’s in, but who’s out. Whiteness functions less as a physical trait and more as an ideological system that governs access to privilege, legitimacy, and safety. It is, in effect, a political identity disguised as a racial one.
In my recently published book, The Spiritual Journey to Antiracism: A Travel Guide For White People, I define whiteness and white supremacy this way: (forgive me for quoting my book)
Let me start by defining “white supremacy” since the phrase conjures images of white-hooded men on horses and burning crosses. There are still KKK types of white people around, but in this book, the term “white supremacy” will refer more to a general cultural landscape that acts as a backdrop or wallpaper to the world in which we live. It is nearly unnoticeable and is taken for granted. In this book I’ll call white supremacy an invisible script which directs our lives without our knowing it. (p 5)
The main point of my argument and my book is that all Euro-Americans are infected with the ideology of whiteness which leads to white supremacy. This affects how they see the world and the “other.”
It doesn’t mean everyone is a racist. That is the thorny part of this discussion. The minute you say, “Hey, did you know your whiteness has imparted to you a sense of white supremacy,” well, defenses go up, and people are ready for a fight because they think you are calling them racist. We’ll come back to this point.
In my book, I also give historical context around how whiteness was invented and constructed. Here is the short version:
In the early days of American colonialism, European indentured servants and enslaved Africans often worked side by side. But when these oppressed groups began to form alliances, as in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, the elites took notice. Laws were soon passed granting poor Europeans privileges denied to Black people based on their white skin only. In effect, “white” was invented to divide and conquer.
Over time, the United States expanded the category of “white” to include formerly excluded groups: Irish, Italians, and Jews, once seen as racially suspect, were folded into whiteness as long as they could uphold and benefit from the existing racial hierarchy. This wasn’t about biology; it was about loyalty to the system.
Legal history confirms this. In cases like Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), courts decided who was white enough to be a citizen, revealing whiteness as a legal and ideological boundary, not a biological or scientific one.
Another way to think of whiteness is as an operating system—like Windows or macOS. You don’t see it running in the background, but it shapes how everything else works.
Whiteness is the assumed norm: the default face in textbooks, the voice of authority in media, the “regular American” in politics. Everyone else is a deviation, a hyphenated identity, a qualified inclusion.
As James Baldwin put it: “No one was white before they came to America.”
He meant that “white” is a New World invention—designed not to describe people, but to enforce hierarchy. Whiteness is ideological because it tells a story: that those who are inside the category are more civilized, trustworthy, and deserving of success. It is not just what whiteness is, but what it means—and who gets to define it.
One of the most insidious powers of whiteness is its invisibility. White people often aren’t required to think of themselves in racial terms. They are just “people,” while others are “racialized.” This neutrality is an illusionist product of a dominant ideology that presents itself as universal and normal.
This ideological whiteness doesn’t just affect white people. People of color are often forced to adopt “white” norms to gain access to jobs, education, or social safety. Code-switching, changing names, suppressing cultural identity, all of these are symptoms of a system where whiteness is the measure of acceptability.
Let’s return to the concept of white supremacy and racism. In my book, I identify four different groups of Euro-Americans related to how they view whiteness and white supremacy. There are the racists, deniers, non-racists, and antiracists. This is where I propose a precise definition for someone who is a racist, like Donald Trump
Again, pardon me for quoting my book, but I think it will help to clarify:
The first group is the white people who are fully aware of their whiteness and the privileges it gives them. They embrace these privileges, are proud of those privileges based on their skin color, and actively seek to retain that status and privilege. These are the white supremacists that you usually think of when you think of bigots and racists. So, let’s call that group what it is… the bigots and racists.
…They believe in the “great placement” theory, which postulates that there is a deliberate conspiracy to end white domination by bringing in immigrants and granting non-white people positions of power and voting rights. (p 59)
The Trump administration is working overtly in favor of promoting “whiteness” through its policies. Trump and many of his advisors know that being white gives them privilege, and there is a hierarchy attached to it. They believe in the replacement theory and are actively working to counter what they perceive to be a threat to white culture.
They are under no illusions…they know what they are doing, and they are doing it deliberately. That is racism. It isn’t simply having a racist belief or attitude; it is acting on that belief to sustain it through power and policy, and ultimately harming those who are excluded. That is racism, and that is what Trump is doing.
The second group, the deniers, are those people who deny that racism or white supremacy even exist. They will pretend that there is a meritocracy in the United States and claim to be colorblind. They believe that because America is great, it can’t be racist; therefore, the history of racism and settler colonialism needs to be expunged.
The deniers, even though they might not commit overt acts of harm to others, end up in the same place as the racists. Denying reality harms people of color. So the racists and deniers are close ideological cousins.
A third group is the non-racists. These are the folks who admit that racism exists, that it is morally wrong, and say, “Something should be done about it. Only, don’t ask me to examine my attitudes or beliefs…I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” The truth is, those who are non-racist are simply trying to avoid being labeled as a bad person. They can’t believe that they have been influenced by white supremacy.
However, that is the key…understanding and accepting that as a Euro-American with white skin, I have been influenced by the privilege that it provides. Therefore, an antiracist is the person who knows they have been complicit due to ignorance or concern about reputation. They are now willing to learn…and learning is the essence of being antiracist. By learning how whiteness as an ideology hurts people, and then taking action to undo the programming and the oppressive systems it supports, that is antiracism.
If whiteness is an ideology, not an identity, then it can be dismantled. Not easily, but intentionally. This doesn’t mean white people should hate themselves; it means they should understand whiteness as a story they’ve been taught to believe and choose to stop believing it and retelling it.
Toni Morrison once said, “White people have a very, very serious problem. And they should start thinking about what they can do about it.”
The problem isn’t skin color—it’s the belief system. Dismantling whiteness doesn’t erase anyone’s heritage, but it challenges the privileges that heritage has accrued through domination.
In a multiracial democracy, we must ask hard questions: What purpose does whiteness serve? Who benefits from its invisibility? And what would it mean—for everyone—to let it go?
Back to the Trump Administration: how do we combat the overt racism of such a political machine? I will suggest two paths of action.
First, vote the bastards out. Yes, there is no other way to expel such a sickness than to organize, mobilize, and inspire others to use their vote for a more meaningful and empathetic person as the leader of the nation.
However, the second path is even harder. It is a personal transformation. If you are Euro-American, you have been infected by white supremacy. Use your agency to decide to reprogram yourself through education, learning, and developing new neural pathways inside your brain that deconstruct whiteness within yourself.
Trust me, this is not an easy process. It is just easier to call others racists.
It might start by simply using a different language…instead of referring to yourself as a “white person,” start using the term Euro-American. After all, we hyphenate everyone else…African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans. By switching to Euro-American, we deconstruct the mental power of whiteness by refusing its normality.
That is a spiritual journey to Antiracism.
If you would like to learn more about a personal journey toward antiracism, please consider purchasing my book, The Spiritual Journey to Antiracism. You can find it here.
