I’m experiencing a tremendous degree of cognitive dissonance. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it’s also the inauguration of someone who doesn’t seem to understand what MLK was about.
During the 2024 campaign, he supported a truly dreadful candidate for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, a black man. 45/47 said that Robinson was Martin Luther King “on steroids.” The Tar Heel is a guy who left messages on a “porn site’s message boards more than a decade ago in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI,” among other failings. Fortunately, he lost badly in a state that Orange won.
There were many online posts claiming that djt was never accused of being racist until he decided to run for president. Well, no. This AP story notes otherwise. Most of it is not new to anyone paying attention.
“In 1973, for example, the Justice Department sued the real estate tycoon and his father for their alleged refusal to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to Black tenants. Testimony showed that applications filed by Black apartment seekers were marked with a ‘C’ for ‘colored.’
“The lawsuit ended in a settlement in which the Trumps acknowledged they “failed and neglected” to comply with the Fair Housing Act, though they were never required to explicitly acknowledge discrimination had occurred.
“In 1989, Trump infamously took out full page newspaper ads calling for New York state to reinstate the death penalty as five Black and Latino teenagers were set to stand trial for beating and raping a white woman in Central Park.” And he doubled down on this long after they were exonerated, so they sued him in 2024 for defamation.
HUD
djt includes many of his former rivals in his cabinet and his inner circle, including people of color. He named Doctor Ben Carson the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; even though Carson had no experience in this area, it was convenient for him.
“Carson has allowed his family members to be involved in the operations of the department in ways that could benefit them. In particular, Carson’s son, Ben Carson Jr., and his daughter-in-law, Merlynn Carson, appear to have exercised an unusual amount of influence over certain government businesses. Emails uncovered by American Oversight and analyzed by news outlets reveal that both Carson Jr. and Merlynn Carson may have attempted to use their influence at HUD to advance their own private interests.” This shows that when he hires grifters, he doesn’t discriminate.
Black voters
Yet more black people voted for djt than ever before. Kamala “Harris appears to have won 80 percent of the Black vote, according to an exit poll by The Associated Press. But that’s a drop of 10 percentage points compared with 2020, when the current president, Joe Biden, won nine of 10 Black votes.
“The beneficiary? Trump, who won 20 percent of the Black vote this time, according to the exit poll. He had won 13 percent of the community’s vote in 2020 and 8 percent in 2016 — which in itself was the highest level of support by Black voters for any Republican since George W Bush in 2000…”
“Why? Today’s Black voters operate a bit more independently from previous generations, especially young Black voters, analysts say.
“Historically, the Democratic Party’s legacy with the civil rights movement is what kept it popular with Black voters. However, younger Black voters do not have those same civil rights legacy attachments…
“‘…this rising percentage of Black voters [is] taking a different look at the Republican Party in general and are exploring some curiosities with Trump despite his racial baggage.’”
I have no great insight here. The 47th president has the magic elixir that allows him to do things that I, as an old poli sci major, have never seen anyone else pull off. I hope that the country survives.
I will lean into the fact that, in the tradition of the MLK holiday, we act locally to make our country a better place despite what might happen at the national level. This isn’t easy, I know, but it is probably necessary. Here’s a Letter from a Birmingham Jail by MLK in 1963.
This