While our current political climate always feels charged, some events still manage to strike like lightning. The president’s recent posting of the jungle meme depicting the Obamas as apes was one such moment. Less than two decades ago, the Obamas were seen by many as symbols of our nation’s progress on the long, torturous road from slavery to equality. Now, their images are being weaponized to resurrect the old, abhorrent trope of Black people as animals—less than human.
Today’s administration is engaged in the tragicomedy of scurrying to fulfill the directives of last March’s Executive Order 14253, creatively titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This order demands the removal of references to slavery and other historical, racial, or social injustices, replacing them with “patriotic” narratives. Yet, a damning artifact remains in the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3—the so-called Three-Fifths Clause:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States … according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons … three fifths of all other Persons.”
“All other Persons,” of course, was the euphemism for enslaved people.
At the risk of violating EO 14253, here’s a bit more history on the subject of slav—sorry, “all other Persons.” The first enslaved Africans in what became America are usually tied to Jamestown in 1619, but European slave traders were landing along the coasts of what’s now South Carolina, Florida, and the Caribbean as early as 1526. In other words, Black human beings were kidnapped from Africa and enslaved in the Americas for more than 160 years before our “enlightened” founders enshrined their sub-humanity in the Constitution. And it would be another 78 years before slavery was abolished. Is it any wonder that racism remains so deeply rooted?
For a society to tolerate such cruelty, it first had to excuse itself from the legal and moral obligations that protected the “whole Number of free Persons.” Thus, the Three-Fifths Clause. They weren’t human like us. They couldn’t think or learn the way we could. They were no different than monkeys or apes. Once we—white Americans—saw them as less than human, we felt justified in treating them as animals and property.
That kind of thinking isn’t just back—it’s spreading.
It started with language. From the moment he launched his campaign in 2015, Trump laced his rhetoric with slurs, insults, dogwhistles, and outright profanity. Opponents got demeaning nicknames. Journalists were “filth,” “dishonest,” “parasites,” and “enemies of the people.” Immigrants were “illegals,” “aliens,” “terrorists,” “rapists,” “drug dealers.” People whose hate speech had long been shoved to society’s margins suddenly became “good people.” In a decade, they’ve gained acceptance, even prominence and power.
Under the banner of championing the MAGA base, Trump and his allies have trained millions to see “the Left”—and anyone who stands against Trump—as vermin, scum, evil. Less than human. Who cares if he’s crude? The other side is worse. He’s on our side.
Steven Miller and Russell Vought spent the 2021–2025 interregnum plotting to eliminate foreign aid, destroy the “administrative state” (what most of us know as the Civil Service), and engage in radical deportations. “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is anathema to their purpose for the power they sought. In their concept of government, the population were incidental statistics, not individual people.
Now, consider the effects of closing USAID and halting humanitarian, medical, and food aid abroad:
A model tracking the impact of USAID funding cuts estimates that more than 762,000 people have died in the first year of suspension, including over 500,000 children. These deaths are from pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other causes linked to lost prevention and treatment programs.
—Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota
Peer-reviewed modeling in The Lancet forecasts that continued cuts could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths worldwide by 2030, including about 4.5 million children under five, if sharp funding shortfalls persist.
—Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA
Here at home, letting Affordable Care Act subsidies lapse will guarantee worse health outcomes for the poorest Americans. Medicaid cuts in the Big Billionaires’ Bill will shutter rural hospitals and clinics. The hollowing out of the CDC and other health agencies can only be explained by ideology overriding science, and by a callousness to human suffering. It’s personal, too: see Elizabeth Bruenig’s “This is How a Child Dies of Measles: When your family becomes a data point in an outbreak” (The Atlantic, February 12, 2026).
When it comes to dehumanization, it’s hard to top what’s happening— and what’s coming— with the ICE immigration crackdowns. Anonymous, armed, and acting like thugs, agents are terrorizing cities across the country. They claim to make “targeted” arrests, but “targeted” now means indiscriminate. In the chilling testimony of a U.S. citizen who was assaulted, arrested, and briefly imprisoned with no reason apparent on video, agents repeatedly referred to her and others being brought in as “bodies.”
As for what’s coming, it’s recently emerged that ICE has spent the past year quietly searching for large warehouses to convert into concentration cam—sorry, detention centers. Most local governments are pushing back, but some are welcoming ICE. The plan: two dozen facilities, total capacity of up to 100,000 “bodies.” Budgeted cost: over $38 billion.
A modest proposal for an antidote
Citizens in Minnesota and across the country are quietly pushing back against dehumanization in the most radical way possible: by refusing to see their immigrant neighbors as anything less than fully human. Shopkeepers, nurses, teachers, students—these are our communities, woven together in ways that no executive order can erase. Facts bear it out: immigrants are less likely to have criminal records than their U.S.-born neighbors. But that argument, true as it is, misses the point. The real resistance is in everyday kindness—in meeting fear with welcome, in showing up for each other, in refusing to let cruelty define us.
Peaceful protest and public resistance matter. But so do small, daily acts: sharing a meal, offering a ride, standing up when someone is harassed. These are not just gestures of goodwill; they are a form of defiance. Each one shines a light on the regime’s violence, making what is monstrous unmistakable.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans—many who feel abandoned, heartbroken, or powerless—are left asking what comes next. It’s easy to go numb with sadness, to retreat into isolation, to feel like nothing we do matters. But that surrender may be the greatest danger of all.
Psychologists and public health researchers have spent decades studying what happens when people reach out to help each other. The results are striking: acts of kindness don’t just benefit the recipient. They lift up the giver, too. They lower rates of depression. They extend life expectancy. They make people feel less alone, more connected. Generosity and cooperation spread through entire social networks, turning isolation into community, distrust into trust, fear into hope.
This is not naïveté, and it’s not about “being nice.” Dehumanization shrinks us into caricatures and categories; kindness does the opposite. It restores our humanity. It tells each person, “I see you. You matter.” Dehumanization humiliates and degrades. Kindness uplifts and inspires. In an era when cruelty is policy, kindness is a radical act.
If we want an antidote, maybe this is it: not grand gestures, but the daily, stubborn refusal to let anyone—especially those in power—decide who counts as human. Every time we choose connection over contempt, we reclaim a little piece of our country, and ourselves.
Thank you for putting this together. The video was disturbing, but important to watch and know about. Thank you, MIke
LOVE: "In an era when cruelty is policy, kindness is a radical act."