The Inner Monologue

In this case, the defense goes like this: if a  president shares a depiction of a black former president as a monkey, it may be crude, it may be offensive, but it is somehow honorable because it is unfiltered. Better to speak one’s mind than to suppress it. Better authenticity than hypocrisy. Better bluntness than political correctness.

That defense collapses the moment you examine it.

Let’s begin with the image itself. Portraying Black people as apes is not random satire. It is not neutral symbolism. It has been used for centuries to dehumanize, to imply biological inferiority, to rationalize enslavement, segregation, disenfranchisement, and violence. The caricature is not merely insulting; it is historically weaponized. When that imagery resurfaces, it does not float free of context. It carries its lineage with it.

Defenders insist the point is not the image but the honesty behind it. “At least he says what he thinks.” This confuses candor with virtue.

Honesty is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or ill. A person can honestly express generosity, courage, or moral clarity. A person can also honestly express resentment, prejudice, or contempt. The honesty does not sanctify the content. It simply reveals it.

If someone says, “I dislike my political opponent’s policies,” that is speech within the bounds of civic disagreement. If someone circulates imagery rooted in racial dehumanization, that is not an argument about policy. It is a statement about status. It implies that the target is less than fully human. And once political discourse shifts from disagreement about ideas to the suggestion of diminished humanity, something foundational erodes.

The defenders often pivot to free speech. They are right about one thing: in America, government should not punish speech simply because it is offensive. The First Amendment exists precisely to protect speech that angers or unsettles. But the First Amendment is a shield against state power, not a medal of honor.

There is a vast moral space between “the government may not jail you” and “this is admirable leadership.” That space is where character lives.

The more sophisticated version of the defense claims that suppressing such thoughts would be worse. According to this logic, it is healthier for society when prejudices are aired openly rather than hidden. Sunlight, they argue, is disinfectant.

There is partial truth here. It is indeed useful to know what a leader believes. Transparency clarifies alignment. It removes the ambiguity that can cloud voter judgment. But usefulness is not virtue. If a leader openly expresses contempt for certain citizens, voters may appreciate the clarity—but clarity does not make contempt noble.

There is also a false dichotomy embedded in the argument. The choice is not merely between suppression and expression. There is reflection. There is restraint. There is growth. There is the conscious decision, especially for those who hold or have held high office, to elevate rather than degrade.

Leadership is not therapy. It is not a diary. It is not a livestream of impulse. A president—or former president—speaks with amplified consequence. Words become signals. Signals shape norms. Norms shape culture.

When dehumanizing rhetoric is amplified from powerful platforms, it lowers the threshold of what becomes acceptable. It moves the Overton window. What once would have been universally condemned becomes tribal sport. Citizens begin to mirror what they see. Politics shifts from adversarial but shared citizenship to enemy combat.

The defenders call this authenticity. They argue that voters prefer a leader who is “real,” who does not mask his feelings behind rehearsed platitudes. But authenticity is morally neutral. A person can authentically express empathy or authentically express cruelty. Authenticity is not a substitute for decency.

There is another danger in romanticizing unfiltered speech: it erodes the very concept of self-governance. A functioning democracy depends on the discipline of mutual recognition. We can argue fiercely about taxes, immigration, climate policy, foreign affairs. But beneath those arguments must remain a baseline agreement that our opponents are fellow citizens—fully human, equally endowed with rights.

Once political leaders indulge in imagery that historically denies that baseline, the republic becomes more brittle. Not because speech alone destroys institutions, but because language shapes imagination, and imagination shapes action.

Some will dismiss this concern as oversensitivity. They will say satire is rough, politics is brutal, and opponents have been mocked for generations. True. Political cartoons have long exaggerated features and skewered figures. But caricature and dehumanization are not the same thing. Mocking a politician’s policies or even personality is categorically different from invoking tropes historically used to suggest racial inferiority.

If defenders wish to argue the image is harmless, they should confront its history directly. They should explain why that history no longer matters. They should engage the substance. Instead, they retreat to a meta-defense about honesty.

But honesty about prejudice does not elevate prejudice. It exposes it.

And perhaps that is the uncomfortable truth. The claim that it is “honorable” to express such thoughts is not really about honor. It is about allegiance. It is a signal that, within a particular political tribe, provocation is valued more than cohesion. That the willingness to offend is interpreted as strength.

Strength, however, is not the absence of restraint. In fact, restraint is one of the clearest indicators of strength. The ability to choose words that criticize without dehumanizing, to attack ideas without attacking personhood, to energize supporters without degrading opponents—that is discipline. That is leadership.

A nation “of the people, by the people, for the people” presumes the people are equal in dignity. If political rhetoric repeatedly chips away at that assumption, the phrase becomes hollow.

Free speech must remain protected. But free speech does not require applause. Citizens are equally free to condemn speech they find corrosive. That, too, is part of democratic life.

The real question is not whether someone has the right to post an image. The real question is whether the image elevates the country or diminishes it. Whether it strengthens civic trust or corrodes it. Whether it reflects a commitment to shared citizenship or a preference for humiliation as politics.

Honesty can illuminate character. But it does not ennoble it.

And in a democracy already strained by polarization, leaders who choose dehumanization over debate are not modeling courage. They are modeling decay.