There has been a great outcry recently by those who despise Mr. Trump, no matter what, but also by some among those who admire him without reserve, over the post that involved the Obamas with their faces superimposed on the bodies of chimpanzees.  The criticism had been hyperbolically focused on perceived racism.  I do not support Mr. Trump and have admittedly grown to despise him but I try to maintain a sense of objectivity without which discernment of truth is impossible (absent fortuitous coincidence).  So, while I was initially dumfounded and outraged; I watched the video to see for myself what I would be criticizing.  I doubt many others have done the same.  And I was surprised.  Rather than racist, I found the video idiotically juvenile.  It was by no means limited to the Obamas, although that has been the focus of the criticism, but involved numerous political figures both opposed to and supportive of Mr. Trump, all represented with animal bodies, and that included Mr. Trump himself. 

It was obvious to me that in the associational choice of animals Mr. Trump sought to insult his opponents and glamorize himself.  His was the body of a lion.  But my conclusion was that the video demonstrated not Mr. Trump’s racism but his ignorance concerning biology and evolution.  For example, chimpanzees are extremely intelligent and in their bonobo variant, the biological species closest to humans while male lions, such as the one selected by Mr. Trump to represent himself, are lazy and indolent, albeit strong and fierce, but dominated by the females of the species who do most of the work.

Thus, the video was childish and idiotic but instructive as well, and perhaps unintentionally, the portrayal may have been all too accurate. 

Perhaps someone pointed that out to Mr. Trump who has removed the video from his social platforms.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.