Trump’s promise to make Martin Luther King Jr’s dream come true

“Today is Martin Luther King Day, and in his honor—this is a great honor—we will strive together to make his dream a reality.”

This is what President Donald Trump said during his inauguration speech on January 20, also known as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

MLK day lands on the third Monday of January every year, honouring the civil right leader’s birthday on January 15.

It was established as a federal holiday in 1983 and was recognised across all US states by 2000.

This is the third time in history where a US president has taken the oath on MLK day, with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama doing the same during their second inaugurations in 1997 and 2013, respectively.

So, why is it such a big deal now?

For one, throughout the years, Trump has made several controversial comments regarding the civil rights leader which has sparked outrage.

A prime example is back in August of last year, where he, in classic Trump-fashion, compared his ‘Stop the Steal’ January 6 crowd at the Capitol building to King’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

“If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people.”

He was swiftly corrected by the congressional Jan 6. Committee, who said Trump’s crowd was 53,000 people, compared to the estimated 250,000 who were at King’s crowd in 1963.

Along with this, Trump’s divisive and often violent politics inherently go against everything MLK stood for.

Calling white supremacists in Charlotteville ‘very fine people’ and telling four Congresswomen of colour to “go back to your country” doesn’t exactly scream a presidency where “people will not be judged by the colour of their skin but instead the contents of their character.”

While Trump’s racially charged comments are nothing new, the real irony of his statement that he will make MLK’s dream come true lies in his recent executive order to completely revoke the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, almost immediately after his inauguration.

This Act was signed back in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson, setting out a mandate to help protect workers from being treated unfairly because of their race, religion, gender and national origin, through something called affirmative action.

Trumps’ order, which he issued the day after he was sworn into office, is titled ‘Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity’.

It means that companies that work within the US government no longer must create plans to hire more people from underrepresented groups, and that instead, hiring and promotions need to be strictly based on “qualifications and performance.”

This is arguably a reversal of all the work done to address systematic racism and discrimination and move towards more equal opportunities for all.

Therefore, Trump’s claim to uphold King’s dream while simultaneously dismantling the very policies designed to combat racial inequality is a textbook example of twisting words to fit his own agenda—turning a message of justice and unity into a justification for exclusion and division.