Donald Trump and his fellow conservatives have a problem. They want to be racist openly, but they don’t know how to do it without being TOO open about it. You know, so the races they don’t like might notice.

So it is with no small measure of schadenfreude that I report that they’re still really, really bad at it.

Over on his personal social media platform, Trump likes to post anything he can find that sounds even a little bit like it’s praising him. But it escapes me how Trump and the rest of the political Right can continue to be blind to the overt racism contained in the assertion that “minority voters” like him because of his troubles with the law.

Oh, they’ve tried to explain it. They say that what they mean is that nonwhites know that the deck is stacked against them legally, and they identify with Trump’s similar (?) plight. It’s an attempt to frame the debate beginning from the standpoint that Trump is being persecuted, not prosecuted.

But it seems like they’re never going to figure out that it sounds like they’re saying “Blacks are criminals, so they like people who are treated like criminals.”

Trump just posted another article claiming that he’s become a hero to minority voters, and even asserting that “young Black men” are putting up posters of the former president “in ghetto areas” because of their affinity for him.

Because, you know, that’s where young Black men live. In the ghetto.

The article quoted Patrick Basham, who is a pollster who Trump loves because Basham always says Trump is winning. Basham is a liar, someone who lied about getting his PhD from Cambridge in the UK. Typical Trump hanger-on. Basham said that Trump was a “gangster hero” in a video in the linked article, and it’s as gross as you’d expect.

Now, I’ll never claim to understand or identify with the systemic racism that has held the marginalized down in America. I have been privileged my whole life. Hell, writing this article is a privilege, in that if I were a Black man I would just sound bitter to the racists in conservative America.

But this one really seems like a no-brainer, guys.

Once you have been made aware of something’s innate racist nature, you don’t get to use it again and say that’s not what you meant. Like, take the Confederate flag. Over and over we hear “It’s about heritage, not hate.” But the people who fly that flag know what it means to everyone else. It’s racist, on purpose, out loud.

Just stop, Donnie. You’re not winning any Black votes with this. You’re not convincing anyone that you’re their hero by telling them that other white people think you must be a hero to minorities.