Here’s some breaking news for you: Much like forever FLOTUS Michelle Obama, I will not be watching the January 20 inauguration of a certified loser.
There is no reason for me to pay attention to this circus. There are better big tops with more compelling performers. Why watch the emperor with no clothes, who insists that the frigid weather in Washington, not his aversion to small-crowd-size jokes or a desire to pocket the nonrefundable $200 million he raised for an outdoor inauguration that is no longer happening, drove him indoors?
Ain’t nobody got time for that. Too many of us have to prepare for the days ahead. Everyone, from trans students and known activists to our Muslim and immigrant neighbors, is in jeopardy. Even Donald Trump’s base is in danger, and what’s worse is they don’t know it. I flew from my Texas home to D.C. this past weekend in a plane full of Trump superfans who didn’t seem to realize that their inauguration tickets aren’t the only things bouncing like bad checks — their votes are, too. In the days ahead, Trump’s tariffs will fall on them and the mass deportations they championed will threaten their businesses. And no, the president has no plans to lower those grocery prices like he told them, either.
So instead of watching the train wreck at the Capitol, even for the hate laugh, I’m going to keep my eyes affixed to the most important event on the third Monday of every January: celebrating the birth and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the beloved community he dreamed for us. In what would have been his 95th year, he is not here to advise us on a path forward, but his prolific and eternal words light a trail for us to follow.
“These are revolutionary times … Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism, and militarism.” —“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”
Dr. King’s admonishment of Western hegemony and American imperialism in Asia marked an increasingly radical King. Many felt King should have stayed in his Negro place and left topics like American militarism and poverty alone. (Appropriately, his daughter Reverend Bernice A. King chose this plea to reflect her feelings on the recent cease-fire in Gaza, yet another third-rail issue that Black activists were scolded to stay out of.)
But today, these words describe our dutiful place in the era of Trump 2.0. Our responsibility to oppose the hostility of this world is eternal. It does not disappear with an election cycle, or a march with that damn knitted pink hat. As we watch some of our formerly beloved artists, previously outspoken politicians, and formerly vanguard corporations choose capitulation over courage, King reminds us that the only appropriate response to attempted authoritarianism is revolutionary spirit. Societies don’t bend to dictatorial will by violence alone: Both brute force and societal consent, brought on by falsely appealing messaging and the wonder of pageantry, are what cause democracies to fall. Just ask Germany.
That’s why you don’t watch that damn inauguration, or attend that cringe CryptoBall, even if “Gin and Juice” is bumping. And you damn sure don’t perform there. (Et tu, Snoop?) Even for those of us wise enough not to fall for MAGA’s overt lies, it will be tempting, in large and small ways, to choose the apathy that creates space for tacit capitulation — and that is not a choice we can afford.
“Young people today often say, ‘What did you get for all your sacrifice? You sold out. You were Toms.’ We didn’t get everything we wanted, so they think we never gained anything. Though we still have severe problems in this country, we should not forget what the Movement did achieve … But we also need to remember that struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” —Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.
I can’t think of Martin without Coretta, and frankly, none of us should. Neither the King Center, the King holiday, nor the National African American™ version of “Happy Birthday” — which yes, Stevie Wonder actually wrote for MLK Day — would exist without his brilliant activist and artist wife. Her astute observation of the ahistorical nature of American memory, often chopped and screwed to just its final lines, is timely. As an organizer from the Ferguson uprising, I know that our modern movement for racial justice and ending police and state violence against Black people has been deemed a failure by some, because we haven’t been able to put a stop to 400 years of racial oppression or 300 years of police repression in a mere decade. There are credible critiques of every movement, but that is just not one of them — and threatens to lead future generations to believe that retrospective critique is the same as active freedom fighting.
I’m not one of those millennials who believes Gen Z is apathetic, an assumption they’ve disproven time and again. The tech-bro oligarchs swarming around Trump are determined to mislead younger generations, however, perverting their passions against their own interests. Look no further than the 15-hour TikTok “ban”: The more we learn about the government’s abrupt about-face on getting rid of the Chinese-owned app, the more our Spidey senses tingle at a suspected MAGA ploy. Trump, who first pushed a TikTok ban in 2020, is now positioning himself as the solution to a problem he created, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew seems all too pleased to credit him with the win — all while the creators who once relied on the clock app’s payouts have been demonetized and demoted. Much like Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (I will never call it “X”), a space that was once used to radicalize young people on everything from climate change to Palestinian freedom is poised to be the latest social platform to come under the influence of the authoritarian-in-waiting, completing a Twitter, Meta, and TikTok trifecta. So take note, Gen Z: Trump doesn’t want to defang you. He wants to use you and bend your passions to his will. As the elders would say, now is the time to stay woke.
“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of the employers remain intact, and say: ‘This is not just’ … There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
Speaking of oligarchs, let’s talk about the C.R.E.A.M. Next to classic American misogynoir, a driving force behind Trump’s election win was voters’ perception of how bad the economy was, and which candidate told the best story about bringing the price of eggs back down. It didn’t matter that Trump’s pledge was a lie for many of his followers; if believing the lie was wrong, they didn’t want to be right. In the days that followed, the lionization of Luigi Mangione made clear that folks are tired of being broke and exploited. Now is the time for us to collaboratively demand what our governments owe us and define exactly what dignity, livability, and fairness look like when they hit our bank accounts.
Confusingly, this election result came not long after Hot Strike Summer, when everyone from Amazon workers to public-school teachers to Hollywood writers courageously left their work stations and took to the streets. Labor movements have long been the heart of political progress, and alternative political parties like the Working Families Party are building grassroots power and electing labor-aligned candidates from city councils to Congress. To build future governments that reflect our values, we have to shape our political homes and mainstream parties in our own image. If they are unwilling to change, it’s time to leave them behind. At every level, we will only get free if those future governments pursue King’s “social vision … to reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”
“White supremacy can feed their egos but not their stomachs.” —Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
Class analysis that doesn’t address race and gender is hollow, as is the reverse. Our lives are intersectional and our fight must be as well. In King’s final and most prescient book, he says it plainly: White supremacy (and I say patriarchy, too) tricks the mind. Avowed supremacists like the next president and his friends can convince white folks that they’re sufficient champions of their needs, even as those same leaders are robbing them of access to the same American Dream we were all sold. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s assessment of the power of white supremacy comes to mind: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Men of color’s growing support for the Republican Party and its consistent hold on white women are telling. Systemic racism, anti-Blackness, and patriarchy seductively divide natural allies from one another and dilute the potential of our collective power. The road ahead requires we move with more solidarity, or else the work of white supremacy and patriarchy will continue without white people and men having to lift a finger. But these dual cancers are harmful to their white and male carriers, too: They feed their sense of superiority but leave them without the social and economic benefits that come to everyone in a healthy, multicultural democracy. Despite what it looks like, it is in the best interests of white folks and men to slay the dual-headed dragon.
There is far too much good fruit born by Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King’s tried-and-tested wisdom to give any attention to the attempted seduction of inaugural pomp and circumstance. We don’t need to waste our time being disgusted by the display, nor can we afford to risk being even remotely compelled by it. We need to make sure that the next four years only last four years — fans of dictators don’t tend to respect election results —and there is much work to do. So for the next 1,461 days, don’t look to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead, fix your gaze on the moral and tactical blueprint that the fighters who wrote their own liberation left for us.
There is a precedent for freedom in this country. It is up to us to renew it now.