Apparently, the flesh-eating bacteria Steve Bannon uses to exfoliate the remains of his face has finally leaked into his brain.
In a recent interview with the BBC, Sloppy Steve tried to ingratiate himself with our supreme ocher overlord by claiming Trump’s “policies” have transformed the racial powder keg that was once the United States into a veritable Shangri-La for people of color:
“Donald Trump has the lowest black unemployment in history. Donald Trump has the lowest Hispanic unemployment in 25 years,” said Mr Bannon, who was fired from the White House last summer. “If you look at the policies of Donald Trump, anybody…Martin Luther King would be proud of him, of what he’s done for the black and Hispanic community for jobs.”
All together now: Thanks, Obama!
Not that DKos readers really need an instruction in basic Trumponomics, but Trump has done precisely nothing to address black and Hispanic unemployment other than reap the benefits of a black man’s hard work. (Hmm, no wonder he’s so popular in the South. He’s a 21st century avatar of antebellum white privilege.)
Trade war? That’s not helping.
Upper-class tax cuts? Nope.
Poisoning poor people’s drinking water? Not really.
Cracking down on migrant workers so vegetables rot in the fields? That one seems particularly unhelpful.
Fortunately, MLK’s actual family has a lot of experience with Republicans pretending Dr. King would be a huge Rick Santorum-style Republican. And they clapped back. Big time.
First, MLK’s own daughter:
But Bernice King, the only surviving daughter of King, claimed the white nationalist Mr Bannon had “dangerously and erroneously” co-opted her father’s name. Rather than being pleased with what Mr Trump had done since entering the White House, she said he would have been “extremely disturbed”.
“Bannon’s assertion that my father, #MLK, would be proud of Donald Trump wholly ignores Daddy’s commitment to people of all races, nationalities, etc, being treated with dignity and respect,” Ms King, 55, wrote on Twitter.
“My father's concerns were not sectional, but global. He was an activist for the civil rights of black people in America, but he was also an activist for human rights.”
She said her father would not use “degrading” terms such as “illegal aliens” - and would never “pit one group against another in the struggle for justice, as Bannon attempts to use him to do”.
“My father would be extremely disturbed by the climate created by leaders who have emboldened people to easily express and demonstrate cruelty, predominantly toward people of colour and immigrants,” she added.
MLK’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, had a more conciliatory response, but it was still a bona fide FU:
“People sometimes say things and really don’t necessarily have a full understanding,” said King, a human rights activist. “I’m certainly sure Steve Bannon means well, but what he’s saying is not accurate. I think my father would, as he always did, challenge President Trump tremendously. He challenged all presidents.”
King said President Trump is “tone-deaf when it comes to communities of color. What I mean by that is we have to go back to Charlottesville, where he talked about the neo-Nazi and hate groups who were demonstrating.
“It seems to me that when you characterize that group of people as ‘good’ people, that is certainly not an understanding of who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what he represented. That’s just one of many things.”
Translation: Steve Bannon, keep MLK’s good name out of your racist mouth.
And while we’re at it, Republicans of all stripes should take that advice to heart as well.
***
Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump is now available at Amazon (or at one of the other fine online retailers carrying it). Get your (super cheap!) copy now.