As they prepare to exit the White House, the Trumps are remaining firmly out-of-touch. On Monday — which was Martin Luther King Jr. Day — the outgoing president’s daughter and longtime adviser Ivanka Trump took to Twitter to share a quote from the late civil rights leader, completely and entirely ignoring the many ways in which the presidential administration in which she has participated has undercut the principles of which he spoke. King spoke about “dignity, equality and freedom” — in other words, the principles that Trump and his top allies have spent much of their time in the spotlight attacking. To use one of many examples, Trump has repeatedly promoted the idea of jailing his political opponents.
Ivanka shared as follows:
‘Today, we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” -MLK, Jr.’
Check out her tone-deaf message below:
Today, we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits." -MLK, Jr. #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/BiKpvRhCop
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 18, 2021
It’s amazing for Ivanka to talk about a commitment to basic provisions for Americans when the Trump administration itself failed to secure meaningful economic relief for months at a time amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Sure, the outgoing president eventually came out in favor of $2,000 relief checks for Americans… but for months preceding that point, he mostly seemed more interested in golfing and tweeting than actually personally engaging with the Congressional negotiation process surrounding prospective relief. There is, of course, the broader issue of the Trump administration’s failure to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and the outgoing president’s personal refusal to always even take the virus seriously, even as many thousands of Americans lost their lives.
The examples go on. At pretty much every point, the Trump administration has stood in stark opposition to the sentiments contained in the King quote that Ivanka shared. How about the many asylum-seekers and immigrants whose basic safety that the Trump administration has threatened? What about the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol building that Ivanka’s father just helped incite within the last couple of weeks?
Check out Twitter’s response below:
