In the wake of Donald Trump’s newly shocking comments defending the white supremacists in Charlottesville yesterday, Fox News once again called on Alveda King, the right-wing niece of Martin Luther King, to argue that Trump was right in line with her uncle’s preachings.
King who unfailingly uses her uncle’s civil rights legacy to advance right wing talking points, previously helped Fox spin Trump’s first round of disturbing Charlottesville remarks as MLK-like.
Yesterday, in the wake of even more shocking comments by Trump that left even Fox News hosts stunned and dismayed, Fox quickly brought on King to repeat her suggestion that Trump is doing just what Martin Luther King would have done.
KING: What the president has done is to step in what we call the six steps of the King family legacy, non-violent conflict resolution. So you get your facts, you educate your public, you examine your own heart, you negotiate for peace, then you peacefully protest. …Then you’re seeking a win-win situation with non-violent reconciliation. So the president got his facts, and then he made his next statement so he condemned all violence, cease fire, and then he continued to make statements.
That seemed a bit much for even the Trump-sycophant host, Trish Regan, to swallow. But she blamed any reservations on the media: “I hear you,” she said, sounding doubtful. Then she added, “The problem, as far as the members of the media have seen it, it was that a lot of those facts had been out there. So maybe he wasn’t as aware of them, for whatever reason…
King interrupted to disagree and to suggest that Trump had all but deliberately channeled MLK.
KING: It had nothing to do with him not being aware. He had to assess the whole thing, look at all of the threats, call cease fire, stop all of the violence, and let’s come together. That’s exactly what he did. He condemned the violence, he condemned the hatred, he has called racism evil, racism is evil. President Trump said all of us have the same color blood no matter what color our skin is. He says let’s solve our problems by giving everybody dignity, jobs, opportunity to take care of themselves spiritually, socially, and physically, he’s doing that.
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What you have to do is recognize the ethnicities, the dignity and respect that is due there but encourage people to get along. My uncle said, “I’ve decided to deal with love because hate is too difficult a burden to bear.”
We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools. So one blood, one human community here in America, we must learn to get along and the president said, “Cease fire. Let’s reason this thing out. Let’s not have all of this fighting and killing and all of the evil violence of racism.”
Regan brought up the four CEO’s who resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council yesterday in response to his remarks. The council disbanded today, after more defections. But King dismissed yesterday's four exits as insignificant. “Four left, 20 remain,” she said. “And some more will come and he will continue to work to build America.”
“The number who stayed is much bigger than the number that left. Remember that one," King continued. "I think the number that stayed is maybe more important than the number that’s left."
Watch the video Fox News hilariously titled “Dr. Alveda King salutes President Trump’s call for unity” below, from the August 15, 2017 Your World. Then, in case you missed it, check out what Trump actually said, the remarks King wants us to think MLK would have endorsed.
I find it interesting to learn that the monuments to the confederacy (statues, flag and that catchy tune, “Dixie”) were actually put in place by the descendants of traitors. I’d never thought about it that way until President Trump created the false equivalence between the founding fathers who forged the country and the secessionists who wanted to break it up.