Pennsylvania Republican Mayor Faces Calls to Resign After Racist Facebook Posts Depicting Obama as Ape

West York, Pennsylvania Mayor Charles Wasko, a Republican, faces calls to resign on September 29, 2016 after community members discover racist Facebook posts on his page depicting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as primates. One image shows a wagon of orangutans captioned "Aww... moving day at the Whitehouse has finally arrived" with the tagline "Kenya or bust." A comment on another post refers to Michelle Obama as "Moochelles baby photo." The posts reflect a pattern of racial dehumanization of the Obamas that appears across local Republican social media during the Obama presidency — in addition to Davenport's 2011 email, similar posts circulate from Republican officials in West Virginia, Wyoming, and elsewhere. The pattern demonstrates that racist depictions of the first Black president are not isolated incidents but a recurring feature of Republican Party communication networks at the local level.