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I have written often that there is a common denominator in our deeply divided nation.
That is the general sense that something is wrong.
The points of departure among our large and diverse population are the perceptions about what the problems are and what must be done.
In this spirit I ask, as many have over recent days, what message we might take from the coincidence of the inauguration day of Donald J. Trump as America’s 47th president with the national holiday honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It is interesting to note that in 1964, shortly after King’s famous speech at the Lincoln memorial, and shortly after the assassination of an American president, 77% of Americans said, according to Pew Research, that “they trust government to do what is right just about always/most of the time.” The percent expressing this sentiment in 2024 was 22%.
The percent expressing trust in government, per the Pew survey, spiraled relentlessly downward from 1964, and despite ups and downs, it never again got even close to the 77% of 1964.
However, parallel with the spiraling down in trust in government has been a spiraling up in the growth of government.
In 1964, per the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, federal government expenditures took 17.3% of our GDP.
In 2024, federal government expenditures, per the Congressional Budget Office, took 23.9% of GDP.
Can it be an accident that the more Americans have come to rely on government, the more Americans have allowed government to take over an increasing percentage of their lives, their trust in government has dramatically fallen?
Common ground between the appeal of Donald Trump in 2025 and the appeal of King in 1963 is that both were about the pressing need to be faithful to the founding principles of the country.
Trump’s MAGA message in 2025 is that the nation has destructively strayed from these principles. King’s message in 1963 was that the country failed and was failing to live up to those founding principles.
However, common ground for both was and is concurrence about the validity of those founding principles — a free nation under God — and the critical importance of being true to them.
What we do know is what the civil rights movement became, and what became widely understood to be the road to racial justice in America, was a great departure from King’s words and appeal in his “I Have a Dream Speech.”
How can the sad irony be missed when today Al Sharpton wants to lead boycotts against corporations shaking off their DEI — diversity, equity, inclusion — programs when the most memorable line of King’s 1963 speech was his dream that one day his children would be judged by the “content of their character” and not “by the color of their skin”?
A great point of inflection occurred in the 1960s, much under the leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, where the civil rights movement became a platform to direct the whole nation to the new god of big government.
It has grown and grown, and here is the meeting point between MAGA and King’s dream.
The false god of big government is hurting all Americans. We’re all drowning in it and damaged by it.
The “I Have a Dream Speech” was really a pastor’s sermon, and the National Mall became his church.
The substance of it is equally relevant, whether you see it about Making America Great Again or about Making America Great like it was meant to be.
Restoring sanctity of life, liberty and property. Understanding that the source of our creativity is our Creator.
In King’s words, “And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.”
And then we will join hands and sing “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
I don’t know. I think I missed the phony King “holiday”………………..again. I think there was something a little more important going on as well, like an inauguration of an actual president.
Charelton Heston(The Ted Comandment’s)once marched with King News for Hollywood Mess Maker Spike Lee
There’s an important factor missing here. In 1963 there were still segregation laws in place throughout the South, in spite of legislation supposedly forbidding it.. It took an act of Congress passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to address enforced segregation. Comparing that to the MAGA movement in 2025 seems like a weak comparison.
In my youth in San Francisco, such discriminatory housing laws still existed. Willie Mays, when the Giants first arrived in San Francisco, tried to buy a house in SF’s mansion row, and couldn’t because it was a “restricted neighborhood”. This was in “liberal, tolerant” San Francisco! Say what you will about King, but the country would be alot different without his sacrifice.
Me and my special class spent two days in San Francisco on a Field Trip some Fifty Years Ago and we took a ride on a Trolly Cable Cars had Dinner at the Fisherman’s Grotto #9 and visited the Zoo and Stinehart Observatory/Aquarium we even took a ride down Height Ashbury during its Drugs era and that’s before t he Freaks took over
I believe the cause of the gradual transfer of power from the people to the federal government over the past 250 years is due to the fact that our constitution was written in a time when communication and travel were much more time consuming and limited. It greatly limited the public’s knowledge of their representative’s actions, the reasons for their actions and the likely outcomes. The constitution relied too much on the character of these representatives for wise rule. Needless to say, today we are awash in information.
What we need now is the repeal of the 17th amendment or reduce the term of the senate to four years. Six years of corruption is too long to go unchecked. Additionally, we need to have automatic votes of confidence every year for president and senators and eliminate midterm elections (no longer needed).
Now the folks screaming about being Anti racist all appear to be deep seated racists.
Now the folks that scream about America must be a Democracy all appear to be against the landslide voting election of Trump….
Now the folks that scream D.E.I. is important are the folks segregating people by their Skin Tone.
All the folks that call Trump a racist constantly mention his Skin tone.
D.E.I needs to changed to D.I.E.