The photographs here are but one example of the current cesspit of racism that is churning in the United States. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted a seemingly innocuous photo of him with his children on Halloween. The comments that followed from self-described Maga-Republicans were nothing less than vile.

Ramaswamy isn’t the only Republican to face this kind of raw hatred. Kash Patel also received a flood of racist vitriol after wishing his followers a “Happy Diwali.” And the list goes on and on and on.

In a large sense, vice president JD Vance has also played his own game of Christian nationalism. He admitted publicly that he hopes that his wife Usha converts from Hinduism to Christianity. Given his obvious affection for the widow of the late racist blowhard, Charlie Kirk, the ramifications are significant. From the top down, the rot runs deep.

Recently, Republican slop-posters created a series of AI-generated videos depicting Black women complaining about cuts to the US food assistance program SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The fake videos used disgusting racial stereotypes of Black women as being lazy and sexually promiscuous, a recurring theme among racists. But none of this gave pause to the conservative news outlet, Fox News, who ran with the story as if it were true.

Since the start of the government shutdown, the Trump regime has refused to fund the essential program that assists over 40 million people, half of whom are children and most of whom are white. In the miasma that is social media, there has been a flood of racist memes and posts from the far right. Some go so far as influencers using blackface to get their racist point across to their feckless fans.

And it isn’t entirely partisan. One look at the NYC mayoral race exposes the rancid racism at the heart of Andrew Cuomo’s campaign aimed at Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo has used almost every racist trope in the book in an attempt to defame Mamdani and deflect from his own sexual misconduct charges and elderly killing policies. Most of these attempts have backfired spectacularly.

But the point here is not whether one ruling political party or the other is more racist or not. Obviously, one is far more overt about it and is becoming more and more openly fascist. The bigger picture demands a look at American society itself.

Racism has always been woven into the fabric of American life. The nation that was stolen from the Indigenous population through ethnic cleansing and genocide and built by enslaved people from Africa, has never truly grappled with any of it.

The Civil Rights Movement held promise thanks to the endless work of Black and Indigenous communities. But it is now being eroded by an enormous segment of the white population that has never truly accepted it. And far right white politicians continue to use it as a distraction from egregious economic policies that favour billionaires over their constituents.

But while the Republican Party seeks to whitewash American history of its copious crimes and suppress any discussion of the history and legacy of institutionalized racism, the Democratic Party elite continue to hold on to a romanticized version of it. To many, the election of Obama was enough to live in a fantasy of a post-racial society. After all, why should there be talk of reparations if we can all go to the silly and revisionist musical ‘Hamilton’ together in an unsegregated theatre?

The stark reality is that the American Empire was built on racism and class exploitation. And it is now in steep decline. Its economy is on the brink of collapse thanks to a regime that cares far more about padding the pockets of useless billionaires and enacting business-killing tariffs than addressing the dire needs of its population. Its soft power abroad is waning due to a long history of belligerent foreign policy and blatant hypocrisy and its most recent support and aid of an obvious genocide in Gaza.

The Trump regime is simply the logical result of this vicious bipartisan legacy. Its use of racism to divide people isn’t anything new. It simply has no other tools in its belt than to distract and scapegoat vulnerable and marginalized communities. So, as the American imperial project enters its closing chapters, we should expect even more racist rhetoric and worse.

Given all of this, one would think that racialized people like Ramasamy would wake up from their hypnotic slumber. That they would see Maga and the American project for what it is. But the illusion of inclusion can be a powerful and intoxicating drug. And most of them have overdosed on it.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025