Editor's note: The money quote from Trump's MLK Day proclamation (not written by him and obviously signed under duress: "Today, we honor the brave men and women who remain steadfast in their commitment to law, order, liberty, and justice for all. We renew our resolve to honor our heritage, reclaim our freedom, and recommit to the truth that America is, was, and forever will be a great Nation." Straight outta The Third Reich! -- Eds.
Remember last Jan. 20, and how much it sucked to realize we were in for four more years of President Donald Trump?
And remember that his inauguration fell on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so he decided to use his inauguration speech to say that he was somehow the standard-bearer for King’s legacy?
“Today is Martin Luther King Day. In his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true.”
Maybe he meant a nightmare? Because that part came true pretty much right away. Trump didn’t even wait two weeks into his second term to issue his super-racist anti-DEI orders to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a real standout racist in an administration full of racists. To begin, Hegseth had the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency “pause” observances of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Black History Month, Juneteenth, and more.
How about the kick in the teeth to King’s family when Trump decided that a great way to honor King’s legacy was to do a giant digital dump of 240,000 pages of sealed FBI surveillance records about the slain civil rights leader? Did we mention that Trump did this right around mid-July, the time things were really heating up for him as far as the clamor to have Attorney General Pam Bondi explain herself about her “exhaustive review” of the Epstein files. It sure seemed to have been more about ensuring Trump’s name didn’t ever leak out, didn’t it?
What about the real quality administration hires like young, fresh-faced Nazi Paul Ingrassia? Ingrassia got tapped to lead the Office of Special Counsel, a plan that went a bit awry when some 2024 text messages he had sent to some other scumbag conservatives surfaced, like the ones saying that any holidays honoring Black Americans should be canceled.
Well, not quite that. Much worse than that, actually: “MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his 'holiday' should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.”
Trump pulled Ingrassia’s nomination for OLC once those texts broke, but then waited for the heat to die down and just slotted him into a different high-level job where he remains today.
Trump isn’t even really bothering to self-edit any longer. His racism and grievances are always top of mind. Earlier this month, he gave a lengthy interview to The New York Times, where he whined that the passage of the Civil Rights Act had left white men being “very badly treated.”
Because of the world we live in now, it can only get worse. Can’t wait for that Charlie Kirk memorial statue in the U.S. Capitol because, as GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said, “We have a statue of MLK in the Capitol, don’t we?”
Maybe we could all shake it off, breathe some fresh air, and go to a national park for free on MLK Day? Wouldn’t that be nice? Well, it’s not free on that day any longer. But you can go for free on June 14, Trump’s birthday. What luck.
Small blessings: At least if you wanted to attend the annual Let Freedom Ring Kennedy Center MLK Day concert but did not want to go to the shambolic renamed catastrophe the center is these days, now you don’t have to. After 23 years, it’s moving to the Howard Theater.
Let’s face it: we’re probably lucky he hasn’t just canceled the holiday entirely yet. But give it time.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
