President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed is, among other things, a gift to historians. No major historical figure has provided so thorough a public, real-time account of their daily thoughts and feelings. Future generations of Americans will almost certainly look back on this era with horror and astonishment—and thanks to the president’s stream-of-consciousness social-media habits, they’ll have the raw material to understand how it happened. For instance:

....to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2019

With these tweets on Friday, Trump was almost surely referring to The Hunt, a horror film in which wealthy foreigners hunt “deplorables” for sport. The movie was scheduled for release in late September, but Universal Pictures, which had already paused its marketing campaign after the twin mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, cancelled it amid the political backlash from conservatives. Trump’s tweets on Friday followed similar remarks to the press earlier in the day. “Hollywood is really terrible,” he said. “You talk about racist—Hollywood is racist. What they’re doing, with the kind of movies they’re putting out—it’s actually very dangerous for our country.”

Trump calls Hollywood racist and suggests that he wants censor movies. pic.twitter.com/AccsVi9fms — Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 9, 2019

To the extent it pertains to The Hunt, Trump’s accusation of racism was befuddling. The film’s plot is an exaggerated satire of the far-right populist worldview, albeit shorn of the racist overtones that often accompany it: that they’re systematically oppressed by a vast left-wing cultural hegemony. The cast, at least judging by the trailers, is largely white. More to the point, the “deplorables” seem to be the victims, not the villains, in the film. How can a movie in which villainous white elites hunt Trump’s white supporters be racist?

Trump’s racial views are made explicit by his rhetoric and actions toward people of color; no interpretation necessary. But his definition of racism, and how he wields the term in public debate, is worthy of sustained analysis. As with any interrogation of Trump’s random musings, there is no coherent and comprehensive worldview to be unearthed here. But there are two consistent themes to Trump’s use of “racist” over the past decade, and they show how white supremacy shapes his approach to American politics today.

First, when the term is used against white people, Trump typically rises to their defense. This reflex is shaped by Trump’s personal regard for the target. When Hillary Clinton criticized some of his supporters for their bigotry in 2016, he and his base reappropriated her use of “deplorables” as a badge of honor. That sense of racial solidarity is not without exception, especially when he sees a political opportunity or wants to deflect from his own racist history: During that same campaign, he highlighted the Clinton campaign’s use of race as a wedge issue against Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries.

