A leader doesn’t have to pass a law to move the culture. Sometimes they just have to signal what contempt is allowed.

The screenshot making rounds shows Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social account boosting a clip captioned: “LIBERAL YT WOMEN!!! Most damaging creatures on earth.” For those unfamiliar with online shorthand, “YT” means “white.” The target here isn’t a policy argument. It's a demographic outgroup, labeled as subhuman with the word “creatures.”

That distinction matters, because the signal isn’t in the meme itself. It’s in the endorsement.

This is a modern skin on an old move: the “unruly woman” panic. Throughout history, when women, especially those seen as moral authorities, step into public power, critics don’t just debate their policies. They cast them as socially contaminating: hysterics, witches, home-wreckers, civilization-ruiners. The “liberal white women” framing adds a betrayal element: the supposed guardians have defected.

So here’s the narrowest form of the claim: When a high-reach leader boosts content that frames an identity group as inherently harmful or subhuman, the mechanism at work isn’t “trolling.” It’s a permission structure. It normalizes who can be mocked, blamed, and treated as fair game.

To be clear about what I’m not claiming: A repost isn’t policy. This doesn’t “prove a plan.” But it is a public signal of what the movement will tolerate, and what it wants repeated.

If the actual goal is better outcomes, or even just winning, the focus should be on incentives, institutions, and accountability, not identity scapegoats. Because there’s a threshold here. “Just politics” means attacking ideas, behavior, and policies. But when it becomes identity targeting, collective blame, and dehumanizing language, it’s not persuasion anymore. It’s authorization.

And authorization works in predictable ways. Outrage sorts the tribe: “this cruelty is allowed now.” Status backing lowers the social cost of harassment. The debate shifts from “what should we do?” to “who even counts?” The online flank gets fed, and everyone else gets dragged along.

I’ll grant the obvious concession: yes, politicians share junk all the time. But leaders don’t share randomly. The choice is the point. What would change my mind? Proof the post is misattributed or altered, or a clear pattern of repudiation and deletion when things like this slip through.

Which brings me to the question for those who think this is overblown: What’s the minimum standard of message discipline you’d demand from any leader before you’d say, “No. Don’t mainstream that”?