There is probably no group more associated with “blonde hair” and fair blue eyes than the Nordic people who produce enlightened and sensitive societies. And yet Adolph Hitler took what were normal physical attributes and equated the Nordic-Aryan body type (however defined) to define people as seen as “ideal” in a program known as “racial hygiene.”

As most know, anti-Semitism and racism are back and unhidden within certain portions of the far right. The old cliche is apt again; not all on the far right are racists, but the racists out there are found among the far-right MAGA throngs. We have seen this time and again as Trump has dabbled in anti-Semitism himself, having dinner with notorious anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. Trump has also embraced Hungarian leader and self-proclaimed racial purist Viktor Orban.

Thus, it was more than a bit strange and highly disturbing when Donald Trump’s purported national spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, proudly wore a t-shirt with what many believe is an unrequited supremacist message: “Mike America Blonde Again.”

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s shirt: “Make America Blonde Again” pic.twitter.com/KviU1GLYyQ

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) March 28, 2024

Now, you can choose to decide it’s just a silly shirt in which “girls just wanna have fun,” or “blondes have more fun,” or something much darker.

In making your decision, it might help to know that Leavitt ran for a congressional seat in 20222 from New Hampshire in which she supported what are becoming more and more mainstream positions (and terrifyingly so), calling undocumented immigrants “illegals” – which can be rather harmless regarding one’s intent in certain situations, but also calling the situation on the border “an invasion.

The idea that there is an “invasion” along the Southern border has become associated with what is known as the “Great Replacement Theory,” touted by the likes of Tucker Carlson, people who believe that Hispanics from Latin America are coming to “replace” white Americans.

The problem, of course, is not only is this racist to the core (though, sometimes a shirt is just a shirt), but America has always undergone some “replacement theory” as what had always been considered its greatest strength. It is hard to know the order in which Americans objected to the “invasion,” but such invasions were seen as those being done by the Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, or any Asian heritage and ethnicity found among Americans. Now, more and more Hispanics are seen as the culprits, none of whom have ever been treated with disdain for Black Americans.

The irony becomes tragic when it was only two generations ago that the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, extolled the virtues of immigration as America’s greatest strength.

President Ronald Reagan's final speech was a love letter to immigrants:

'Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American. We draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.' pic.twitter.com/4Tpo9vUpLw

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) August 31, 2022

Again, sometimes a shirt is just a shirt, and we don’t know if she’s just colored her hair blonde or – given some of the latest overtones associated with the far MAGA right, whether the ultimate plan is to make America blonder and thus whiter again. What we can know is that a “spokesperson” is supposed to know the importance of messaging and the dangers associated with the wrong message.

We do know another thing: history teaches that when one race feels superior to other ethnicities, the ends are often horrific.

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