‘This Is So Damn Good!!’: Trump Base Tries to Pull a Pig Meme vs. Obama ‘Ape’ Swap Like It’s Clever — Didn’t Expect Newsom to Spot It and the Backfire Goes Ruthless

An ardent Trump supporter thought they had found the perfect “what about” to throw at California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week — a slick little comparison meant to neutralize the uproar over President Donald Trump’s racist video targeting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.

They miscalculated.

Newsom was in no mood to play nice this week — not with Trump, not with anyone trying to defend him, and certainly not with people attempting to twist his own words into some kind of “gotcha.”

(Newsom (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Trump Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

An angry MAGA supporter thought she had found the perfect equivalency — resurfacing one of Newsom’s pig memes to defend Trump after his racist video.

Newsom’s pig meme, originally posted after Trump mocked a female journalist as “piggy,” was dragged back into the timeline as supposed proof of hypocrisy.

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But the comparison landed in the middle of a firestorm.

Trump had reposted a video depicting the Obamas as apes — a racist trope that drew immediate backlash and forced him to delete the post. He later shifted explanations and refused to apologize.

Two days later, on Saturday, Feb. 7, X user Sadie NC First resurfaced one of Newsom’s many pig memes as a “gotcha.”

“Obama as a monkey = bad, but this is a-OK,” Sadie declared above Newsom’s post showing Trump as a pig.

She expected applause. Instead, Newsom answered with a single word: “Correct” and the internet did the rest.

X user Minou Noire also pointed out, “Hahahahahahaha. Newsom OWNED the pedophile protecters with this one!!!

“This is good, so damn good,” another mocked.

But it was very apparent that an ignorant Sadie really didn’t understand the difference between Newsom and Trump’s posts.

“One is political satire based on a sexist comment he made. The other is overt racism. How you don’t get that is beyond me,” an X user explained.

“If she can’t tell the difference between overt racism and character assessment, that’s dumb from her side,” It’s Politics wrote.

Indignant X user Traverse was more explicit: “Comparing and/or depicting White people as pigs isn’t a racial trope. Comparing and/or depicting Black people as apes/monkeys (etc) is a racial trope that has a deep seated history from colonialism/slavery through to the present day. You KNOW this. Stop being disingenuous.”

Beyond the one-word dismissal, Newsom made it clear he wasn’t interested in smoothing anything over.

At a Tuesday, Feb. 10 press conference, when asked about Trump’s post, Newsom unloaded.

“Disgraceful, racist, it’s abhorrent,” he said.

“Any other circumstance that person would be fired, board of directors would ask him to be fired. He’s be ashamed and humiliated and would have apologized. He did none of the above. The President of the United States sending out a racist trope should disgust every human being in this room, everyone. I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican, Independent,” an infuriated Newsom spit out.

He continued uninterrupted, “Leader of the free world — I don’t care who the hell you are. That was sick. It was sick. Sickens me to my core … and I can’t believe that was washed away just with another news cycle. How the hell is he allowed to get away with that?”

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Newsom’s supporters certainly weren’t letting Sadie get away with it either. The backlash toward her was relentless.

“Obama didn’t post this. The Pres of the US posted a racist post of a former President,” this X user declared.

“You know this stems from Trump making fun of a woman right? Telling her quiet piggy.. this wasn’t made to just depict Trump as a pig.. maybe we should stop the whataboutism and address the root cause of all of this,” another poster stated.

Social media poster Uzair was able to joke about it, “THIS IS ACTUALLY OKAY. TRUMP DESERVES ALL THIS LOVE LOL”

And so was poster Susan Hunter who happens to like pigs, but not Trump:

“Hey, pigs are intelligent and can be trained to sniff out mines and bombs. This is an insult to pigs. Trump is a parasite, he has none of the redeeming qualities of a pig. I am offended. Apologize to the pigs of the world Newsom!”

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