Prickly City by Scott Stantis for January 15, 2024

I have a dream …

The people in a position to do anything probably wouldn’t listen. They’d just cherry-pick what he’s said and bend it to their own ends, just like what they usually do.

MLK is just something else Republicans will weaponize. And they will LIE about it in the process.

Like everything else.

I never realized he had been encased in carbonite.

Many of the issues he fought for were brushed aside while he was still alive and they continue to be pushed to the back burner. What makes people think he’d be listened to more now?

One favorite subject is civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.—which party did he support?

The official answer is neither. King talked very infrequently about his personal politics and was not formally affiliated with either political party. Nor did he explicitly endorse any candidate. In fact, he stated, “I don’t think the Republican Party is a party full of the almighty God, nor is the Democratic Party. They both have weaknesses. And I’m not inextricably bound to either party.”

What’s more, the parties of King’s time were different from the parties we know today; policies and platforms have changed drastically over time.

According to King biographer David J. Garrow, King was fond of some Republican politicians, such as Richard Nixon, although it is almost certain that King voted for Democrats John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Among the few times he ventured into open partisanship was to denounce Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who, as a senator, had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King said in an interview, “I had no alternative but to urge every (Black) and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.”

Although King supported Johnson’s presidential campaign, he later spoke out about his dissatisfaction with Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War.

✁

His commitment to social and economic justice for African Americans defined his career, and he frequently expressed skepticism toward capitalism generally. He famously said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

~

Britannica

Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat?

The ones who matter will. Not like the people in power listened to him then. Why would they now?

That is a very good question.

Love this!

Stanti, you mean would the right-wing populists listen, right? Man, you just want to false equivalency this whole year, huh?:

The left would call him, christian fanatic, anti Palestine, homophobic, a token

Racist Republicans want to take away welfare and give all of the tax dollars to the rich. Red states have high child poverty because the right wing extremist government refuses to distribute the welfare money.

Jeff Bezos made over $7.9 million an hour last year. In just 13 minutes, he made the equivalent of what a typical person earns in a lifetime. Don’t tell me that the rich can’t afford a wealth tax.

It depends.

We can, of course, only speculate based on our personal agendas and “groupthink,” but think on the following:

It’s highly unlikely MLKJr. would have “mellowed” in older age, a la Jimmy Carter.

What if a modern-day MLKJr. had come out in recent days in support of Hamas and Hezbollah, like Greta Thunberg and “The Squad”?

What if he had managed to embroil himself with such frauds as Tawana Brawley (as King wannabe Al Sharpton did) or Jussie Smollett? Or the fundraising fraud of Black Lives Matter? Heck, in 2024 the mere fact that he was interviewed by Playboy Magazine (no matter the context) would be used as ammunition against him by some.

There are those who suggest that John F. Kennedy has the surviving positive legacy he has in large part because he was assassinated before scandals and mistakes could catch up with him (as they did to brother Ted), and it was his successor, L.B. Johnson, who instead took the fall for his policy failures. It’s also possible the same could have applied to King, and in spite of his often-brilliant oratory, had he lived he could have been later reduced to a pathetic embarrassment before his passing.

You’re behind the times, Stantis: All right-thinking^ conservatives are supposed to be hating on MLK as the progenitor of DEI and CRT.

^ pun intended

Yes WE would, would you ?

“Would we listen?”

“We would not listen,

We’re not listening still,

perhaps we never will . . ."

RIP MLK

Some would, some wouldn’t. Same as before. What matters is who does and what can and will they do about it.

In January, 2027, we get to see the 13 file cabinets of his FBI files.