QUESTION ASKED: Do Americans Still Believe In Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream?

But as we once again celebrate King and his dream today, we must ask ourselves, do we still share it? For the first time in decades we have a president whom serious people accuse of outright racism, and not without reason. His recent remarks about Haiti and Africa led even Republican Rep. Mia Love to label the commander in chief’s alleged words racist. Of course, these aren’t the first of his statements to come under such fire.

What became clear through Trump’s campaign and presidency is that the rules governing how we talk about race, forged in King’s civil rights struggle, no longer hold. Trump’s supporters, who include more blacks and minorities than many like to consider, simply do not find his statements disqualifying.

But this tolerance of questionable racial rhetoric is larger than Trump and predates him. Over the past two decades, we have moved away from King’s dream in significant ways. King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of the character.” This does not appear to be the goal of our nation’s efforts against racism today.

In retrospect, the left’s mid-‘60s belief in a colorblind nation would soon give way to their utter obsession with identity politics. Colorblind politics? Identity politics? Pick one, because the two are not compatible, and the latter led to an alt-right which similarly rejects King’s notion of a colorblind society in favor of its own equally toxic form of identity politics.