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A PRESIDENTIAL WRECKING BALL  
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Clarence Lusane
August 17, 2025
TomDispatch [[link removed]]

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_ Trump Is Spitting on the Grave of Martin Luther King Jr. _

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On January 20th, Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office with — at
least in his mind — an aura of invincibility. A fully compliant
Congress was controlled by Republicans who were, in turn, controlled
by him. Conservative justices, three of whom he had appointed,
dominated the Supreme Court. The defeated opposition, the Democratic
Party, seemed distinctly befuddled and weak.

Trump then smashed and bullied his way through his first 100 days,
ruling via dictator-like decrees — executive orders — and carrying
out retribution at every turn. Democracy’s redlines were crossed
daily and his MAGA base remained passionately loyal even as the rest
of the nation soured
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watching him do little to make the country better.

However, his “realignment” was never faintly as broad or as solid
as he pretended it was. For example, while he made gains with Black
voters in the 2024 election, rising from 8% in 2020 to 15%, the last
six months have seen a dramatic change in that support. In January
2025, according to a YouGov poll
[[link removed]],
Black Americans’ disapproval of Trump was at about 69%. By June, it
had risen to about 85%. Through it all, however, his support among
Republicans continued to hover between 88% and 95%.

Then, of course, came the Jeffrey Epstein crisis. Trump himself seeded
conspiracies
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surrounding the dead pedophile and his accomplices at rallies and in
social media postings. He minimized his 20-year friendship with both
Epstein and his girlfriend (and convicted child trafficker) Ghislaine
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her part in their
horrific crimes. Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi
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and FBI Director Kash Patel
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each claimed at some point to have evidence that would expose a
“deep state” cover-up in the case, while bizarre stories of global
pedophile rings led by Democrats animated MAGA as much as Trump’s
“build the wall” dreams.

The MAGA faithful were waiting for the deliverable. Trump, however,
found himself trapped, knowing that he’s part of whatever materials
exist and that he will not look good (whether he did anything illegal
or not) if the Epstein files are actually released. His constantly
changing excuses have spread dissent among his own worshipers and led
a panicked Trump to throw out any shiny objects he could think of to
change the subject.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE SHINY OBJECT OVER THERE

On July 21st, as part of his Epstein Distraction Campaign, Trump
released more than 230,000 pages of FBI and government files
[[link removed]] related to Martin Luther King
Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. The more than 6,000 files
include FBI documents related to the killing, most of which are not
new, according to experts who have reviewed them. They do not,
however, include the agency’s nefarious wiretaps of King that are
scheduled for release in 2027. There was, of course, neither rhyme nor
reason to Trump’s dispersal of those files at that moment.

The president’s claim was that he was keeping a promise he had made
when he returned to the White House in January. Within a few days of
being in office, on January 23rd, Trump issued Executive Order 14176
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with instructions for the declassification and release of files
related to the assassinations of King, John F. Kennedy, and Robert
Kennedy. It was a feint at transparency meant to feed the
anti-federalist conspiracists in his base. For decades, a cadre of
Americans has believed that there was a government-backed coverup
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of those killings. In the modern era, the “deep state” adherents
of MAGA world and online extremists have indeed kept those fantasies
circulating.

Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, the surviving King children,
were advised of the release and opposed it. They then issued a
statement
[[link removed]] that
read in part, “While we support transparency and historical
accountability, we object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or
attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods. We strongly condemn any
attempts to misuse these documents in ways intended to undermine our
father’s legacy and the significant achievements of the movement.”
Bernice would later post [[link removed]] on
social media, “Now, do the Epstein files,” making it clear that
she was not fooled by Trump’s flaccid bait-and-switch game. Of
course, privacy concerns and an ideological assault on their father
and his legacy have little meaning for Trump as he tries to escape his
Epstein crisis by any means necessary.

What the King family, scholars, and followers of Martin Luther King
Jr.’s legacy are legitimately worried about is that the content of
those files may serve to reenergize the long and shameful history of
the FBI’s attacks
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on the late civil rights leader. Under the dictatorial rule of
then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the agency surveilled, wiretapped,
and harassed King and other Black leaders relentlessly during his
lifetime.

It was the FBI that tried to convince King to commit suicide. It was
the FBI that sent information to news outlets accusing King of being
controlled by communists. It was the FBI that fostered conflicts and
divisions both among Black activists and between the Civil Rights
Movement and White allies. Accusations of womanizing were issued to
newspapers to embarrass and discredit King. The purpose, as clear as a
bell, was to destroy him, his leadership, and the movement.

More broadly, the FBI’s Cointelpro
[[link removed]]
(counter-intelligence program), which officially lasted from 1956 to
1971, sought to annihilate movements for justice, fairness, democracy,
peace, and inclusion in the 1950s and beyond. Lives were ruined and
campaigns suffered setbacks for exercising legitimate and
constitutionally protected free speech and protest rights. Despite the
exposure of its many, many crimes, for the most part, neither the FBI
nor Hoover was held accountable for what they had done. Hoover, in
fact, died of a heart attack while still director in May 1972.

Investigations [[link removed]] by
scholars and even Congress have since uncovered a wide range of
illegal and unethical behavior by the federal government as it sought
to disrupt and destroy the civil rights and other movements of the
period. It would be decades, however, before the FBI itself offered
anything close to an apology, let alone any effort to repair the
carnage it had wrought.

When James Comey assumed the role of FBI director in 2013, he made a
bit of a _mea culpa_. In his inaugural speech
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he called the agency’s treatment of King “abuse and overreach,”
an appropriate (if exceedingly mild) acknowledgement and rebuke of its
deplorable and criminal conduct toward him and other racial and social
justice activists. And as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
noted in “Unleashed and Unaccountable, The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse
of Authority
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a report released at that time, the agency’s violations of rights
were then still continuing, particularly against people of color,
immigrants, and Muslims.

The current FBI director, Trump loyalist, and true believer Kash Patel
is seen as anything but a friend of civil rights and civil liberties.
Besides being unqualified for the job, having never served in a
serious senior law enforcement position, he’s an election denier and
an advocate of Trump’s desire for retribution against his perceived
enemies. Prior to becoming FBI director, he had published his own
enemies list. His nomination as director was denounced
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by the ACLU, the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, the
Southern Poverty Law Center, and many other civil rights and civil
liberties organizations.

With Trump’s blessing (essentially orders), Patel began purging
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the FBI of agents and investigators who had worked successfully on
cases involving the pro-Trump January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol
and others simply seen as not sufficiently MAGA or supplicant enough
to the president. His job is to crush the bureau as part of a Trumpian
revenge fantasy, while weaponizing its authority for political
purposes. If there is information in the released King documents that
might embarrass the FBI, so be it. But there is little doubt that the
Epstein files, which could actually put Trump in a compromised
position, even though his name has reportedly been redacted
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in them, will never see the light of day.

Whatever may or may not be in the files Trump did release, it’s a
stretch to believe that his concern in releasing them had anything to
do with truth and openness regarding what happened to King or the
Kennedys, rather than a distraction from his own situation. In fact,
Trump has failed to criticize in any fashion the MAGA supporters who
have been on an anti-King rampage in recent years. His feral sense of
survival tells him that King is too much of an icon to go directly
after him, while quoting him on occasion is a way, however
superficial, of trying to win more Black support.

KING UNDER FAR-RIGHT ATTACK

It’s been quite a different matter for other significant MAGA
figures. In such an anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),
anti-woke era, Trump-loving far-right activists have, in fact,
repeatedly and viciously attacked King. Typically, for instance, in
December 2023, Charlie Kirk, founder of the far-right Turning Point
USA (TPUSA) and frequently seen with Trump, insisted that King’s
reputation was overblown and that he was “awful
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and “not a good person
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In particular, he called the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
(CRA), the result of one of King’s most significant and defining
campaigns and a giant step forward for the nation, a “huge
mistake.” In his view, the CRA established a “permanent DEI-type
bureaucracy,” a perspective that perfectly fits Trump’s ongoing
blitzkrieg against all the accomplishments of the Civil Rights and
racial justice movements.

Nor is Kirk faintly alone. Other TPUSA associates and allies have
joined his crusade. Far-right activist Blake Neff, an associate of
Kirk, typically has accused
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King of not really being a “peaceful activist,” but actually
advocating for an activism that became “a very violent thing.”
Naturally, Neff provided no evidence to back up such an assertion.

Yet another TPUSA spokesperson, Andrew Kolvet, has also fed such
attacks. In an email, for instance, he wrote
[[link removed]]:
“A core part of this fake history of America is the elevation of MLK
into a saint, whose entire being is beyond reproach and above
question. This sanctified version of MLK strips away his actual views
and ignores his actual actions.”

In the past, like many conservatives, including Trump, they also
sometimes misappropriated King’s words to attempt to deradicalize
him. Kirk used to refer to him as a “hero” and the TPUSA website
sold a T-shirt with King’s name and stickers that had King saying,
“Let freedom ring.” But that was yesteryear.

Some Black MAGA personalities pushed back against Kirk, including
Reverend Darrell Scott, who called him “an a-hole
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and “a racist.” Scott was a high-profile Black advocate for Trump,
especially during his first term, and remains loyal to him. He charged
that Kirk wants to bring “white superiority attitudes” back to the
Republican Party. Scott, of course, has long ignored or excused
Trump’s attitude of “white superiority.”

Conservative media personality Armstrong Williams, who has kept a bit
of distance from Trump, also criticized Kirk. He suggested
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he do more reading on U.S. and Black history.

However, Black far-right condemnation was anything but universal.
Chicago-based MAGA promoter Bishop Aubrey Shines and TPUSA Director of
Black Outreach Pierre Wilson both went on Kirk’s podcast defending
his attacks on King, insisting Kirk was not a racist, and adding their
own venom to the mix. Wilson, for instance, stated
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“Maybe just maybe he’s not the hero that everyone said he is.”

THE ANTI-KING TRUMP

In Trump’s second term, propelled by his all-in, full-spectrum
anti-DEI agenda, there’s no longer any need for his followers to
pretend there’s anything about Martin Luther King Jr., however
distorted, that needs to be praised. The president’s efforts to roll
back the twentieth century and overthrow everything King stood for
have helped him forge allies with some of the most extreme elements in
the nation. It’s always been the case for Trump that any positive
mention of King was performative and meaningless. What matters now,
however, are the actual policies and laws
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that Trump has promulgated, which are meant to wipe a King-like view
of this country from the face of the Earth.

Although Trump was a teenager during King’s last years, there is no
record of his participation in or concern for the civil rights and
racial justice issues of that era. In fact, the only policy
relationship to Blacks that he had then lay in the way he and his
father violated the Fair Housing Act
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King had championed in his last days and which was passed by Congress
and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 10, 1968,
only six days after King was murdered.

In 1973, Donald Trump first broke into the news in New York and
nationally when Trump properties in that city were sued by the
Department of Justice for refusing to rent to African Americans. After
a years-long court fight, a consent decree was signed in which Donald
and his father, Fred Trump, admitted no guilt but were forced to
change their rental practices. However, despite their denials, a later
_New York Times_ investigation
[//efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https:/www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/117470/documents/HHRG-118-GO00-20240627-SD010.pdf]
“uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s
properties, in New York and beyond.”

In our time, Trump’s attacks on civil rights and voting rights belie
any rhetoric he may spew on King’s birthday or other occasions. In
his first term, and with far less restraint the second time around,
Trump has, in fact, sought to roll back decades of achievements in the
areas of racial and social justice and democracy that King and so many
others fought and died for. He’s taken a wrecking ball to
institutions, programs, and policies throughout the federal government
that were put in place to advance the full inclusion of people of
color, women, the disabled, and the LGBTQ community. The attack on DEI
is more broadly an effort to erase the hard-won gains that have
evolved in the years from the passage of the post-Civil War 13th,
14th, and 15th Amendments to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New
Deal to President Johnson’s Great Society to the Black Lives Matter
uprisings, while establishing an unchallengeable fascist state
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and authoritarian presidency
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The pushback against the expansion of rights from Ronald Reagan’s
presidency to the Trumpian moment confronted laws that were passed,
policies put in place, agencies that were established, and sometimes
weak but stable democratic structures that limited the harm that could
be done — until, that is, the Trump and MAGA movement. After only
six months in office the second time around, driven by numerous
unlawful decrees, nearly every department and agency in the federal
government has eliminated
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enforcement division. Discrimination cases involving people of color
have been dismissed. Laws to fight bigotry continue to go unenforced.
As Nikole Hannah Jones wrote
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in the _New York Times_, the administration is sending “a powerful
message to American institutions that discrimination will not be
punished.”

Donald Trump would, of course, love for the debate to shift to what
the FBI — “the deep state” — did to King, and to see liberals
and conservatives alike spin off on that tangent and forget about his
Epstein troubles, his failing and flailing tariff war, and the growing
unpopularity of his Big Ugly Budget and his recission proposal
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A significant part of his base, which he consciously cultivated to a
cult-like fidelity, is righteously angered and demanding answers. His
deflections when caught in a lie or a scandal have long worked to move
past the immediate crisis, but maybe, just maybe, not this time.

_CLARENCE LUSANE, a TomDispatch regular
[[link removed]], is a political
science professor and director of the International Affairs program
and majors at Howard University, and former Independent Expert to the
European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance. His latest book is
Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for
Racial Justice and Democracy
[[link removed]] (City
Lights)._

_Tom Engelhardt launched TomDispatch in October 2001 as an informal
listserv offering commentary and collected articles from the global
media to a select group of friends and colleagues. In November 2002,
it gained its name and, as a project of the Nation Institute (now the
Type Media Center), became a web-based publication aimed at providing
“a regular antidote to the mainstream media.”_

_In the 18 years since, TomDispatch has regularly published three
original articles weekly on subjects ranging from the American way of
war and this country’s “forever wars” to economic inequality to
the climate crisis._

* Martin Luther King Jr.
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* FBI
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* COINTELPRO
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* civil rights movement
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* Donald Trump
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* Turning Point USA
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* Jeffrey Epstein
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