“[Pittsburgh] Steelers are now just as bad as the rest of the over paid baboons. You respect your flag, country and our national anthem. How many men and women have lost limbs or died to protect this county and you baboons want respect.”

In conclusion:

“If you want respect you need to earn it and so far you haven’t . . . . Let’s see how the baboons get paid when white people stop paying their salaries.”

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Those are the words of Carla Maloney, who was secretary of the Republican Committee of Beaver County, Penn., until she resigned this week following the revelation of these Facebook posts, which she wrote last year. She says she’s sorry. But Maloney was just following President Trump’s lead.

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The Trump effect close to home:

A school crossing guard working last month in the Chevy Chase neighborhood in Northwest D.C. told police that a driver yelled anti-Hispanic slurs at him and threatened to run him over or shoot him. According to the police report, the driver, who is described as black, referred to the crossing guard as an immigrant and said he “did not belong working in this area around white kids.”

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Also last month, D.C. police arrested a man in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood who pulled a knife on another man and told him that he did not like “illegal immigrants.”

Similar incidents have occurred across the country, as people who once had to conceal their bigotry are emboldened by Trump’s inflammatory racial and ethnic rhetoric.

Trump’s racial bullying ought to disgust Americans. More people ought to be speaking out against his divisiveness. Instead, Trump’s slurs aimed at marginalizing brown and black people seem to be just fine with some Americans.

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Equally disturbing, the Trump effect has expanded to include tyrannical attacks on justice and the rule of law.

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This week, the unthinkable occurred again. The president of the United States slammed the attorney general and the Justice Department over the indictments of two Republican congressmen because he thought the prosecutions would hurt GOP election chances in November.

The charges, Trump complained in a tweet on Monday, put “two easy wins now in doubt.” Punishing law-breaking should be put on hold if it stands in the way of continued Republican control of the House, Trump seemed to be saying.

The next step isn’t hard to imagine. Justice Department prosecutions, by Trump’s logic, would require presidential approval. Likewise, federal prosecutions could be ordered by the White House. That is where Trump would take the criminal-justice system.

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He has already signaled his direction with his incessant calls for the Justice Department to investigate a host of public figures he deems guilty of one thing or another. The mind of a tyrant with power to damage. Recall his words at a rally in Evansville, Ind., a week ago:

“Our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job, and doing it right, and doing it now. Because people are angry. People are angry. What’s happening is a disgrace. I wanted to stay out, but at some point, if it doesn’t straighten out properly — I want ’em to do their jobs — I will get involved and I will get in there if I have to.”

The latest: Trump’s call for the Justice Department to investigate this week’s anonymous New York Times op-ed on the grounds of national security.

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The Trump effect is a danger to our democracy.

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Major news outlets, with the notable exception of Fox News, have been reporting on this growing disaster for many months.

Publication of Omarosa Manigault Newman’s best-seller “Unhinged,” celebrated author and journalist Bob Woodward’s “Fear ” and the New York Times anonymous op-ed only reaffirmed what many, including this writer, have argued from the start: Trump is ignorant, selfish, profane, erratic, amoral and untethered to a moral compass.

The Trump effect debases the presidency. He is unfit to serve the nation.

Read more from Colbert King’s archive.