Martin Luther King Jr.’s Class Politics Might Just Be the Antidote to Trump

This year, in a perverse coincidence, Martin Luther King Jr. Day fell on the same date as the second inauguration of Donald Trump. It’s as if history has a grim sense of humor. But beyond noting the painful irony of Trump’s coronation casting a dark cloud over the celebration of King’s legacy, it is worth observing that Dr. King’s political and philosophical ideas might just contain some key answers for those of us who still want to make his dream real.

One of the central aspects of King’s message that many leave out in the largely perfunctory nod to the history of the civil rights movement that celebrations of the holiday usually include is his sharp awareness that economic injustice was a crucial obstacle to achieving the full humanity of all Americans.

Thus, it was his desire to follow up his trip to support striking public sector sanitation workers in Memphis with a march on Washington that highlighted the Poor People’s Campaign, a multiracial movement of the poor that would take the next step and marry the notion of civil rights with economic rights.

King spoke eloquently about the need not just to recognize the beggars in the marketplace of American life but to realize that "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

In this quote we see the synthesis of two predominant elements of King’s core principles: economic democracy and the revolutionary power of love. In essence, this statement is a challenge to the hegemony of capitalism in our society and an insistence that the inequality it produces needs to be addressed with “true compassion” that goes to the root of the problem and insists that justice cannot be achieved as long as we privilege an economic system that inevitably creates not just inequality but the pauperization of far too many of us.

It is important, I think, that he does so by appealing to universal values rooted in a tradition that speaks to common need. His vision, while extremely controversial in his time, was presented in a way that could build bridges between people and had a place for everyone in what seems today to be a hopelessly utopian ideal of a beloved community.

As we head into the teeth of what will surely be an ugly period of our history where the oligarchs that former President Biden warned us of in his final message to America will seek to weaponize appeals to our divisions in order to further enrich themselves all the while building a citadel of entrenched power, it is important to remember their biggest vulnerability is that the American people, by a large margin, do not trust them.

In an otherwise dismaying poll featured on the front page of The New York Times, which showed huge support for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, we also learn that: “There is a widespread belief, across parties, that Washington is corrupt, with two-thirds of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans saying the government serves itself and the powerful over ordinary people. Two-thirds of Americans say the economic system unfairly favors the wealthy.”

Thus, it would seem that to overcome the hostility that drives the desire for harsh treatment of migrants, the best place to start would be to go straight away to the “edifice that creates beggars” and do everything possible to underline how the vision and policies of the party in power have nothing to do with helping ordinary people and are instead focused like a laser beam on making the system even more tilted toward the wealthy by diverting our attention elsewhere. We should also talk about the need to embody a greater sense of self that King appealed to by making the lives of ordinary people better not by harming demonized others, but by improving access to healthcare, better jobs, schools, and more.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson make the case in the Los Angeles Times that if King were alive today, he would be in the heart of the struggle against economic inequality:

King would have had to find new ways to challenge the continuing ills of poverty and wealth inequality, which ballooned in the decades after his death. Even given his superb organizing and planning skills, this growth likely would have been a losing battle.

Had he lived, King’s unshakable commitment to the cause of human rights and economic equality surely would not have diminished. Wherever there was a campaign, march, rally, lobbying effort or event that his presence could boost, it’s a safe bet that he’d have much to say and do. In the Trump era, there would be plenty to keep him busy.

As philosopher Michael Sandel notes in a conversation with his friend, left French economist, Thomas Piketty, in The New York Times, in addition to understanding that the animus toward migrants in the United States and elsewhere is driven by economic policies that eliminated a large swath of solid working class jobs, those on the left also must lean into the power of community:

A progressive economic agenda is an important step in the right direction. But as Donald Trump returns to the White House, Democrats need a broader project of civic renewal. They need to affirm the dignity of work, especially for those without college degrees; rein in the power of Big Tech and give citizens a voice in shaping technologies, so that A.I. enhances work rather than replaces it. Citizens should also have a hand in shaping the transition to a green economy, rather than being forced to accept whatever top-down solutions technocratic elites impose.

Mistrust of experts now runs deep. It feeds the resentment and sense of disempowerment that Donald Trump exploits. Democrats (and, it seems to me, social democrats in Europe) need a new governing project — one that strengthens the bonds of community and gives people a say in directing the forces that govern their lives.

How do we do this? Paint a picture of what a world driven by love for your neighbor and true compassion looks like. Perhaps once folks realize that they are getting burned out on anger and are still empty-handed, a vision of an America that belongs to everybody, not just the rich, will be more compelling than the bitter treadmill to nowhere we just hopped on without thinking too much about it.

At least for today, we can dream.