Even when considering the torrential stream of bullshit that drips and sprays and drips and sprays and drips and sprays from Donald Trump's mouth, his tweets today calling for a ban of transgender people from the military were remarkable. Because there's no fucking way he believes that even the dumbest of his supporters believe a word of his justification — which is that the medical care for transgender people is too expensive. And he knows we know it's bullshit. (Especially since the cost of transgender medical care is so minimal that the military spends 10 times as much on freakin Viagra.) And he knows we know that he knows.
We also know that Trump likely gives zero fucks about what transgender people do, and probably thought until maybe 53 minutes ago that "transgender" was just the name of Optimus Prime's wife. That said, Trump's actual feelings and apathies don't matter as much as what he actually does, and this was a clearly discriminatory act that does nothing but encourage more violence against a group of people who are already disproportionate victims of violent crime.
What Trump does give fucks about, however, is this Russia-related heat on him and his family; a fire that burns hotter every day. His tweets were a way to deflect attention off of Russia while blowing a dog whistle and throwing a dog bone at his base. It was him reminding his people of his commitment to making America great again, and everything that means. And him feeling backed into a corner, and reaching deep into his bag(s) of Whiteness and Maleness and White Maleness to throw a counterpunch. And him reminding us that this is all he is, all he's ever been, all he'll ever be, and all he aspires to be.
This recklessness, this shamelessness, this level of transcendent petty, this annoyance and anger with facts, this apathy with how his actions will affect vulnerable people as long as it excites his base and oranges his skin, this treatment of women and minorities (disposable) and "friends" (expendable) and the truth (erasable) — this is capital letter WHITENESS at its whitest. It's Whiteness with unfettered access to unforeseen Whiteness rooms and hidden Whiteness portals. It's Whiteness completely unencumbered with constraint; Whiteness encouraged to seek and find an even whiter White. Donald Trump exists as a concretized distillation of all the things the creation of Whiteness was meant to be. He's a messy agglomeration of a thousand million trillion American Dreams; curated and congealed into a singular and sentient and terrifying reverie.
He's the Whiteness we've known since there was Whiteness to be known. Which is why, for those schooled in detecting pervasive Whiteness, nothing he's done or will do is a surprise. Still, seeing this destructive Whiteness unleashed is jarring; even for true believers, the violence of its language and the bruteness of its actions is unbelievable. The calamity it causes is unfathomable; its predilection for self-sabotage and self-destruction preposterous; its intentional obliviousness singular and total. And if we do not stop it, if we can't at least find a way to stem its damage and cauterize the wounds it inflicts, it will kill us all.