One hundred and fifteen years ago, Theodore Roosevelt was shocked by the response to his invitation to Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House.   

The outrage was swift, severe, and long lasting with much of it coming from members of Congress.  Press outrage was also swift.  The Richmond Times was moved to write the following:

“It means that the President is willing that negroes shall mingle freely with whites in the social circle—that white women may receive attentions from negro men; it means that there is no racial reason in his opinion why whites and blacks may not mix negro blood with his blood.”

Just over a decade later, President Woodrow Wilson would reinstate segregation in the federal government, the one area of life in DC where integration was allowed.  The following quote from Wilson appeared in the film he screened in the White House, Birth of a Nation:

“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation . . .  until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”

In 1925, tens of thousands of members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Flash forward to this past week.

The President-elect appointed to a senior position in the White House, Stephen Bannon, a man who is either the intellectual brother in arms to the Klan or the happy enabler anti Semitic, racist, and misogynistic points of view.  

At about the same time, a nonprofit leader in West Virginia was compelled to post the following on Facebook:  It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I’m tired of seeing a Ape in heels,” 

A local mayor felt it important to note in response, that the post “made my day.”

This is where we are 115 years after a simple dinner between the President and a black leader inflamed racial animosity.

President-elect Donald Trump has the legal and constitutional power to appoint Bannon to his staff.  What he doesn’t have is any moral authority to do so.  He lost that when, ironically, he brought Bannon into his inner circle.  

Our constitutional system doesn’t provide a firm check on everything and we do not want other institutions intruding on presidential appointments.  To do otherwise would injure the principle of separation of powers.

But this appointment is in the space where constitutional authority meets moral necessity.  Bannon’s background should have disqualified him from any role in any presidential campaign.  But not Donald Trump’s.  For Trump it was just another part of his record of denigrating and demeaning actions toward his fellow citizens.

Becoming President-elect doesn’t change that record.  He can appoint Bannon but shouldn’t.  We can rely on a legalistic approach or moral clarity in response.

Platitutudes do not suffice. The Constitution and the laws allow Donald Trump to make the appointment.  They also allow us to note that by such an action, he remains unfit for office.