America's Darkest Comeback Tour: From Racehorse Theory to Resistance

As we enter U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, a chilling convergence of digital theater and eugenic ideology is unfolding before our eyes. Two days before the inauguration, millions watched their TikTok accounts flash warnings across their screens—only to see them restored hours later with Trump positioned as their digital savior.

This orchestrated crisis wasn't just political theater; it was a test run for what was to come. Millions of Americans, including young people whose identities have been shaped by endless scrolling, saw their dopamine withdrawal weaponized into a demonstration of power, foreshadowing a presidency that would soon explicitly embrace the pseudo-scientific theories that once fueled the darkest chapters of American history.

The choreography continued at Trump's pre-inauguration rally on Sunday, January 19, where the aesthetic was deliberately carnage-red: red banners, red caps, red lights casting a deep red glow over the crowd speckled with cowboy hats. Against this blood-tinged backdrop, Trump spliced scenes from Full Metal Jacket with TikTok clips of drag queens, weaponizing confusing and false contrasts to signal his vision of "restored masculinity." Ever the entertainer, Trump showed scenes from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket to represent a past that never existed, feeding his audience a hollow nostalgia for an America that never was. Kubrick had made that film for the exact opposite reason that Trump chose to flash the scenes across the screens. Full Metal Jacket makes graphically visible the brainwashing of young men by hyper-masculine expectations of war.

The tension between America's ideals and its realities has always been the space where change happens, where communities have pushed against boundaries and reimagined what's possible.

But it was his moment with Elon Musk and Musk's young son that revealed something more chilling. When Trump praised the child's inherited intelligence, invoking "racehorse theory," he wasn't just expressing admiration for the person who is arguably the greatest influence on the sequel of his presidency—he was broadcasting a eugenic worldview that has haunted American history since the 1920s. This was not the first time that Trump has evoked this pseudo-scientific theory at the root of the Holocaust. For a nation built by immigrants and by enslaved persons, his rhetoric about "cleansing" the country of what he terms "criminal illegals" from countries like Congo and Venezuela represents an existential threat to the very diversity that has always been America's greatest strength.

We've seen this before in American history. When eugenic ideologies took hold in the early 20th century, they found fertile ground in institutions across the country, from elite universities to state legislatures. Today, as Trump explicitly returns to this language, we're watching history's shadow lengthen across our democracy. The same pseudo-scientific racism that once justified sterilization programs and immigration quotas now powers algorithms and influences policy. With Elon Musk standing next to him, Trump promoted eugenics hours before he would become president again. Then, during the inauguration on January 20, while Trump was at a distinguished luncheon surrounded by tech oligarchs, Elon Musk stood before Trump's most fervent fans and raised his hand in a salute that cannot be compared to anything but a Nazi salute.

It is harrowing to stand on the precipice of this slide toward authoritarianism and white supremacist dehumanization. Yet throughout American history, in moments of darkness (and there have been plenty), people have found ways to forge solidarity across difference, to build connections in spite of–and sometimes because of—the forces trying to divide them. As social media platforms owned by oligarchs become instruments of division, our resistance must be rooted in physical spaces of community. When we look at our neighbors—in urban centers, rural towns, and suburban streets—and say, "I see you, I hear you, I stand with you," we're preserving the human connections that authoritarianism fears most.

The path forward lies not in Trump's dystopian vision of genetic superiority, but in the mutual aid networks sprouting up across the country. These grassroots communities of care and solidarity represent the most radical spaces of resistance available to us as we face the challenges ahead. They embody not some mythical American spirit, but the real and difficult work of building connection across difference—work that has always happened in the shadows of our nation's darker impulses.

In this moment of crisis, while Trump orchestrates the terrifying sequel of his reality-TV presidency—manufacturing crises, staging spectacles, and exhausting our capacity for outrage—we must remember that democracy has never been a destination but is a messy, imperfect journey. Behind each choreographed distraction, real policies of dehumanization take shape. Yet even as the entertainer-in-chief commands center stage, communities continue their quiet work of resistance and mutual support. The tension between America's ideals and its realities has always been the space where change happens, where communities have pushed against boundaries and reimagined what's possible. Our task now is to continue this long journey toward justice, not by following every performance, but by strengthening the bonds between us. We must build these connections before they can be severed by the politics of division and spectacle. Let's find each other. Let's hold on to each other, let's hold on for our lives, and each other's lives.