The Fight of Our Lives

Reflections on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the continuing struggle for a better America

One Chicago protestor in the “Hands Off” demonstrations in April. (Photo by Steven Beschloss)

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Donald Trump’s second-term inauguration, what might be more accurately described as America’s Unnecessary Tragedy. There’s no need to detail every ingredient of the poisonous agenda unleashed over the last year. All we have to do is look around us right now to see what madness he has thrust upon America and the world:

• Leaders of the 27-nation European Union held an emergency meeting in Brussels yesterday to plan their response to Trump’s threats to impose new tariffs because they oppose his demand for Denmark to sell Greenland to the U.S. Behind this mad plot is the threat of deploying U.S. military forces to invade and take over Greenland. Not only has this caused anger and defiance among European leaders—the Dutch foreign minister called it “blackmail”—Trump’s threats have provoked every member country of NATO. They recognize that such an invasion would destroy the alliance that was founded to defend national sovereignty. It would also be a gift to the warmongering Vladimir Putin who’s dreamed of such destruction.

• Some 3,000 federal agents have invaded Minneapolis, spurring terror in immigrant communities and beyond because these violent, Gestapo-style thugs have been essentially immunized to ignore the rule of law and attack people of color with abandon. As if that were not enough—this lawless force is five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department—Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to silence any dissent. Just yesterday the Pentagon ordered some 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota.

• After invading Venezuela, kidnapping its president and demanding to profit from the country’s oil reserves, Trump has put aside the idea that his henchmen Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth would “run” the country and declared himself the “Acting President of Venezuela.” He also took possession Friday of a Nobel Peace Prize given to him by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, spurring swift condemnation yesterday from the Nobel Foundation. The proud Nobel committee asserted that that it seeks to “safeguard the dignity of the Nobel Prizes and their administration” and “the prizes shall be awarded to those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.’”

A year ago on Jan. 20, I wrote “The Urgency of Now,” which recognized the vivid irony of that day both ushering in our current nightmare and celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I want to share a few excerpts which underscore both how predictable this destruction was (albeit not specifically the attacks on other nations’ sovereignty) and how clear it was then that we had to oppose it with all our hearts and minds.

Let’s not doubt: The inauguration of Donald Trump is a cruel slap in the face of every lover of democracy, equality, justice and the rule of law. This event offers the terrible odor of billionaires and kleptocrats who see an opportunity to exploit government resources at the expense of taxpaying Americans just trying to get by.

The convicted felon mouthing the oath to protect and defend the Constitution? It portends an ugly future, enough to convince some Americans that the democratic project is over, they have lost the battle and there’s nothing they can do now besides turn away.

They are wrong.

In fact, normalizing the idea that Trump’s return represents the end of democracy is a useful component of his authoritarian playbook. Feelings of resignation and despair are just what the authoritarian ruler wants his opponents to experience. Giving up—or believing that it is beyond our power to sustain America’s democratic values and principles—accelerates his success. This is anticipatory obedience, just as much as billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg handing over millions and bowing down to the Malignant One.

This is not a time for silence. This is not a time for resignation or despair. This is not a time to be cynical and insist that it’s all over.

This is a time to gather your strength and stay engaged. This is a time to seek out guidance, to be nourished by the wisdom of others, to remember that you are not alone, to keep in mind that we are facing challenges that many Americans have faced throughout our history—and that we can get through this together.

This is not a time to give up. This would be a disservice to all the good people who came before us and fought for a democratic future defined by justice and equality of opportunity.

In this essay, I quoted from King’s 1958 book, Stride Toward Freedom, that exemplified his commitment to telling uncomfortable truths. It may have been written 68 years ago, but it could not be more relevant to our current moment.

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it,” King wrote. “He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

While the Unnecessary Tragedy of the last year can be rightly described as unlike anything our nation has experienced before—yes, a traitor and depraved tyrant is exploiting our White House to destroy our country from within—it’s important to remember that so many Americans never shared in America’s promise.

That frustrating fact can be read in King’s 1963 letter from a Birmingham jail cell: “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights…There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice.”

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t wonder which of the newest transgressions will be the tipping point—the moment when enough Americans rise up to say they’ve had enough with the abuse, the white supremacist agenda and the abandonment of our Constitution, the rule of law, the democratic project and basic human decency. The point-blank murder of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent and the thousands of masked men that continue to abuse the people of Minnesota seemed to me like such a moment.

Yet that moment has not yet come, as most Americans seem willing to watch and wait, if they are watching at all.

Perhaps it will be the deployment of military troops in Minnesota that will trigger the beginning of the end. Maybe it will take an insane invasion of Greenland. Perhaps it will only result from an economic unraveling caused by the global abandonment of Trump’s America following his aggressive efforts to destroy the international order painstakingly constructed over the last eight decades.

Last year I wrote, “Today is an important day to resist despair and refuse to lose sight of the values and principles that have built our nation. It won’t be easy, but the struggle for a better world never is.”

That still feels about right to me, and it reminds me that the change we need won’t happen as fast as we want or exactly in the way that we want. But that shouldn’t cause us to lose our belief in the pursuit of equality and justice, basic human decency in a society that respects each of us and a healthy system of self-governance.

At great human cost, we are living through the failure of our society to believe in that pursuit. But even though too many American voters lost sight of what being American requires—giving us a criminal White House occupant determined to feed on the ruins of public liberty—we shouldn’t doubt that the corrupt and criminal members of the Trump regime can be held accountable and the mission contained within the Declaration of Independence can become a priority.

But, in this 250th anniversary year of American independence from a mad king, that will take the efforts of tens of millions of Americans speaking with one voice. As I concluded a year ago, “We cannot be silent. We cannot give up. We must continue to make demands to create the America that we envision for ourselves and coming generations.”

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