Your Annual Reminder that Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Definitely Not a Republican
When your party is devoid of positive role models, you grasp at straws.
The 21st-century GOP is in this exact situation. Their figurehead is far and away the most uncouth "man" to ever occupy the Oval Office. Their Vice-President is a lapdog, insisting upon flinging social media insults like a high school bully. The rest of their administration is made up of sycophants, neo-nazis, drunkards, and jackasses. The House and Senate GOP kicked out their last sane members over the past five years. And any GOP governors may be popular in their deep red states, but lack any sort of larger appeal that would make them formidable candidates in 2028.
It's no wonder that the GOP tries to hijack Martin Luther King, Jr. every year.
Dr. King was definitely not a Republican. He voted for JFK in 1960 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. He was becoming more and more aligned with Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. But known politics aside, King's actions during his life simply ran contrary to everything the GOP believed in at the time. King's life's work focused on equality for the Black population. To have a person judged by their character rather than the color of their skin. To fight against legalized segregation in places like Montgomery and Selma. To create a world where the next generation wouldn't be at the mercy of the de jure and de facto laws that still permeated throughout the country. King saw his life's work as being the type of work where he needed support from both Democratic and Republican leaders. Yet he ended up souring on Richard Nixon and saw him as dangerous due to the fact that his efforts on behalf of civil rights seemed largely disingenuous. When it was JFK and not Nixon who called Cynthia King after her husband's 1960 arrest, that sealed the deal for King, and he became much more closely allied with JFK from that point forward.
Yet, Republicans continue to gaslight us each and every year. They insist that since King's father was a registered Republican, King must have been one as well. They assert that the GOP was the Party of Lincoln and that it would have been only natural for a Black man like King to have been a Republican coming of age in the South in the 1940s and 50s. But this is as much evidence as the GOP can muster. Because when you have a historical figure who is so universally loved among Democrats, you have no choice but to either tear him down (see: Obama, Barack) or to try and make him one of your own. Since tearing down Dr. King is a bridge too far for even today's GOP, they instead try to make him out to be a mid-century Republican in line with many Black southerners of the day. Like a broken record, each and every year we'll get multiple GOP congressmen and senators offering high praise for a man that they would have absolutely despised had he lived a half-century later.
The GOP's shameless campaign to try to falsely assign Dr. King's political affiliation happens each and every year. They know better; they just don't care. They need a historical Black man to be on their side to disprove that they are, in fact, the party of White supremacy. Of course, this year it was none other than Donald Trump himself who had an interesting new wrinkle to the GOP and their quest to hijack Dr. King's legacy. By removing the MLK holiday (along with Juneteenth) from having free admission at all national parks and instead adding his birthday, Trump gave a massive middle finger to the Black community. Today, all of those GOP congressmen and senators offering their "admiration" for Dr. King on social media should have to answer for Trump's clearly racist decision to undermine Dr. King's legacy. Because you can't support Dr. King and Trump's overt anti-King racism at the same time, although we know they'll try.
While today is a day to honor Dr. King's legacy, it's also a day to remind us how far we have left to go. We've taken a massive step back in this country, thanks to the ignorance of 77 million Americans and the apathy of another 90 million. We have a party that would see someone like Dr. King out there today as an "agitator" and would have no problem jailing him the same way he was jailed over 60 years ago. The party offering Dr. King platitudes on social media today is the same one that sees no problem with a domestic immigration force terrorizing citizens and noncitizens alike. Like the GOP during Dr. King's time, the modern GOP also wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act and put black and brown people in a position where they are neither seen nor heard. Every single thing they do in both the state and federal governments is something that Dr. Martin Luther King fought against during his lifetime. He despised Republicans back then and would hate them even more today.
Especially for how they continuously try to make him one of their own.