Martin Luther King's Dream Under Attack as Trump's Inauguration Marks a New Era
Today we commemorate the life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On this day we also witness the second presidential inauguration of a man who for years has systematically attacked the very dream Dr. King described in his 1963 Lincoln Memorial Speech. And his second-term agenda suggests continued attacks on people based on the color of their skin, and calls into question the content of the President’s character, and that of many of his designated nominees.
Make America Great Again – the theme of all three of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns and a self-identifier of Trump supporters, MAGA – evokes a bygone era. It idealizes an America before the civil rights wins that began to dismantle some of the worst abuses of the Jim Crow era. And this idealization has happened right before our eyes, as Trump embraced white supremacist policies and normalized white nationalism.
Four years and two weeks ago, on the Elipse just a mile from the Lincoln Memorial, Trump inspired a crowd filled with white supremacists to invade the U.S. Capitol, where some hoped to assassinate the Vice President and Speaker of the House.
Some carried Confederate battle flags; some wore clothing celebrating the Holocaust.
That evening, after watching the Capitol assault on television, Trump told the attackers, “We love you. You’re very special.”
Dancing with White Supremacists
In my 2020 book, Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It, I track what I call Trump’s dance with white supremacists. Throughout his campaign, his presidency, and his post-presidency, Trump followed a recognizable pattern: He signals to white supremacists, and they signal back. Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, frequently referred to it as a “wink-wink-wink” relationship.
It began nearly fifteen years ago, when private citizen Trump addressed the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and declared he would run in 2012 to unseat President Barack Obama. He revived the long-discredited birther conspiracy that Obama was secretly Kenyan and Muslim. This got the attention of white supremacists. He continued pounding the birther theme for six years, straight through to the last month of his 2016 campaign.
White supremacists perked up even more in his 2015 campaign launch when Trump declared that Mexicans are rapists, when he called for a wall on the southern border, and when he later promoted a total and complete ban of Muslims entering the United States.
In early 2016 Former Klan leader David Duke endorsed Trump and urged his followers to volunteer for his campaign. He said, “Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage.”
In late August 2016, Trump named Breitbart News co-founder Stephen Bannon to lead the first Trump campaign. Bannon had previously said that Breitbart was the “platform for the alt-right.” The phrase “alt-right” was coined in 2010 by Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist who later was one of the Charlottesville organizers, as a less menacing phrase for white nationalism. After the election Trump named Bannon his senior White House strategist. In this way, the alt-right had a direct channel into the White House. Bannon played a central role in the 2021 “War Room” in the Willard Hotel that coordinated the January 6 Ellipse rally. Bannon, recently released from prison after a conviction for contempt of Congress, is back in Trump’s inner circle.
God Emperor of White Supremacists
On the day Trump was declared president in 2016, white supremacists celebrated and took credit for putting him in office.
The Daily Stormer wrote: “We won, brothers. All of our work. It has paid off. Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn’t have been possible… And the great news is, we’re going to be given credit for it.”
David Duke tweeted: “This is one of the most exciting nights of my life -> make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump! #MAGA”
Richard Spencer tweeted: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback. #Trump.”
Making Whiteness Great Again
Ten days after the election, in an auditorium of the Ronald Reagan Office Building several blocks from the White House, Spencer addressed the white nationalist group he ran. He said, “We willed Donald Trump into office. We made this dream our reality. . . And this Trumpian dream is only the beginning . . . We demand to live in the world that we imagine… For us it is conquer or die. This is a unique burden for the white man, that our fate is entirely in our hands... That is the great struggle we are called to. We are not meant to live in shame and weakness and disgrace. We were not meant to beg for moral validation from some of the most despicable creatures to ever populate the planet. We were meant to overcome—overcome all of it. Because that is natural and normal for us. Because for us, as Europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again.”
Spencer closed his speech with a rousing call, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory.”
Spencer raised a glass up high with his right hand, in an apparent toast. Members of the audience rose and gave a Nazi salute extending their right arm out to the front. One man gave the salute multiple times, shouting “Sieg Heil!” – literally, “Hail Victory” in German.
In August of Trump’s first year Richard Spencer, David Duke, and other white supremacist leaders organized the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
Trump and others insisted that the Charlottesville protest was about the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. But it was much more.
On its website, The Daily Stormer admitted that the Charlottesville protest was not simply about a statue: “Although the rally was initially planned in support of the Lee Monument, which the Jew Mayor and his Negroid Deputy have marked for destruction, it has become something much bigger than that. It is now an historic rally, which will serve as a rallying point and battle cry for the rising alt-right movement.”
One of the organizers, Michael Hill, president of the white nationalist group League of the South, tweeted to his followers: “If you want to defend the South and Western civilization from the Jew and his dark-skinned allies, be at Charlottesville on 12 August.”
The Daily Stormer posted on its Facebook page: “Next stop: Charlottesville, VA. Final stop: Auschwitz.”
“Battle cry” is not a casual reference. The Daily Stormer live-posted during the protest, including this: “THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A WAR! WE HAVE AN ARMY”
After counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi, President Trump said that there was hatred and bigotry on many sides. The Daily Stormer wrote:
“Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate… on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room.”
Two days later President Trump said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” David Duke tweeted a thank-you to the President.
Daryl Johnson, former domestic terrorism expert at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote a Washington Post column in which he noted the alignment of the white supremacist agenda and Trump’s policies and priorities:
“Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, militia extremists, and other radical right-wing zealots march side-by-side at pro-Trump rallies across the country. Trump’s endorsement of the border wall, the travel ban, mass deportations of illegal immigrants — these ideas were touted on white supremacist message boards merely 10 years ago. Now they’re being put forth as official U.S. policy. Such controversial plans have placated white supremacists and anti-government extremists and will draw still more sympathetic individuals toward these extremist causes along with the sort of violent acts that too often follow, like Charlottesville.”
Fifteen days before the 2018 midterm elections, President Trump declared himself to be a nationalist. He addressed a rally crowd and said, “You know, they have a word, it sort of became old fashioned. It’s called a nationalist. And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am, I’m a nationalist, OK. I’m a nationalist. Nationalist! Use that word!”
The following year, when Trump called for four congresswomen of color to “go back to where you came from,” The Daily Stormer wrote, “This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for.”
Second Term: A Dream Deferred?
Before Trump left office in his first term he signed an executive order that attacked diversity initiatives in government. President Biden rescinded the order on his first day in office and replaced it with one promoting racial equity. Trump is expected now to rescind that and restore and enhance his original order.
At the start of Trump’s second term he, his nominees, and his allies have declared a war on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, which they label “woke,” in companies, higher education, and the military.
Dr. King’s dream was that we would judge people by the content of their character.
At the end of the Trump presidency, we see that he fails the character test. The tone is set from the top. Trump has spent the last 15 years trying to dismantle Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy. In his celebration of white supremacists and glorification of violence, he is the very antithesis of Dr. King.
We made it through the first Trump term. Here’s hoping we have what it takes to make it through a second, with the dream merely deferred, and not destroyed.
