MLK Day 2025: Exiled from The Promised Land

Jan 19, 2025

Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Monday will come with a painful irony. It falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which America has celebrated on every third Monday in January since 1986.

How did we come to a point where a narcissistic right-wing billionaire who embodies the antithesis of everything that King stood for is being ushered back into the highest office in the land?

*A sign at yesterday’s anti-Trump protest in Washington, D.C.*

In his latest essay for our January print edition, Indypendent Contributing Editor Nicholas Powers takes stock of how the gradual decomposition of liberal politics over the past half-century has created a void that Trump and his MAGA movement have filled. The Democrats, he notes, turned King’s demands for racial equity into an empty version of identity politics while ignoring MLK’s calls for economic justice for a multi-racial working class.

“In a perverse dynamic,” Powers writes, “the more Democrats gave up on the working class, the more they championed racial diversity and gay rights. King’s dream became a moral savings account they withdrew from when they came up short on real change.”

The road back to relevance, Powers suggests, lies in plain view and its most charismatic champions have been figures like Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders.

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Exiled from the Promised Land
By Nicholas Powers

“Fuck America!” Her voice shook my phone. “I’m leaving! This is Trump country; fine, let ’em have it. I’m done.”

Rage. Disgust. Hurt. The days after Trump’s re-election, my friend yelled. I said yes, leave, but most people can’t JetBlue away. We

gotta fight. Besides, where would we go? Wakanda? “Wakanda?” she shot back. “It’s not even a democracy. King T’Challa? Hello?”

“We won’t be either,” I huffed.

“Trump forever,” she used the Black Panther accent,made the Black Panther salute. I did too. Deep belly laughter shook us. We yelled “Trump forever!” on the street. It was the first joy I felt since the election.

I hung up and smiled. We will need humor to get through these next years. ICE will seize undocumented neighbors. Activists will be surveilled. Voting, in grave peril. Homophobia, legalized. Racism, celebrated.

A DREAM DEFERRED

After Trump’s victory, I threw my Kamala Harris “Yes We Kam” shirt in the trash. I was angry at her, angry at Democrats for veering so hard to the right. I felt like a pilot in a G-Force flight simulator. I was angry at myself for being duped.

I did not feel rage; I felt a hollow hurt. The re-election of Donald Trump felt like the end of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dream.” We were taught since childhood that with hard work we could integrate fully into the United States — I mean truly feel at home. Not look over our shoulders. Not fear the police. Not bite our tongues when racist jokes were told at work. Feel safe on land we bought. Not fear another crack era but see our neighborhoods thrive like everyone else’s ZIP codes. Maybe this could be the promised land.

A Harris victory meant we on the left could intensify the struggle. We could fight for universal healthcare, workers’ rights and a Green New Deal. We could stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. If our victories gathered momentum, we could transform the United States, a nation based on Native genocide and African slavery, women’s second-class citizenship and exploitation of workers, into the promised land. Or at least a real, functioning democracy. Now looking at Trump pick his cabinet, we will fight just to keep the right to vote. And fluoride in our water. And the polio vaccine.

I kept the trash-can lid open and looked at the crumpled Kamala shirt. Democrats sold her as proof that MLK Jr.’s Dream was coming true — but it was the wrong King. It was the King from the Apple ad, the King of DEI and respectability politics. Not the end-the-war, end-poverty, radical 1968 King. In hindsight, she and Obama were frauds. They betrayed King’s legacy with their support for U.S. forever wars abroad and corporate centrism at home. King’s real heirs were Jesse Jackson, Sen. Bernie Sanders and The Squad. Losing the election, and maybe democracy itself, means a lot of liberals lost an illusion. Now they are free of fake dreams. Now we can all imagine again.

I closed the trash. Good riddance.

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS

Ever had your card declined? The card machine at the bodega beeps weird, and the cashier looks embarrassed: “Declined.” That’s what happened when Democrats lost.

My son ran the aisles, playing hide-and-seek. I picked up a box of eggs. I pretended to weigh it in one of those double-pan scales held by Lady Justice. Eggs? Democracy? You can only pick one.

Remember when prices shot up? On everything. Eggs. Milk. Meat. Date nights. Rent. Gas. Every. Fucking. Thing. Add to that, now you tipped everything. Fifteen percent. Twenty percent. Twenty-five percent. I saw on my neighbors a pinched anger.

We have watched the “American dream” become more and more expensive for decades. Imagine being on an escalator from MLK Jr.’s Dream to the American Dream and it jarred to a halt. The first time I felt it stop was when Bill Fucking Clinton signed NAFTA. I remember him smiling on TV; he hailed it as a win-win for big business and workers. So U.S. factories closed, reopening in Mexico and China. When I visited friends in the Rust Belt, I saw jobless people and neighborhoods cratered like the moon. Once Democrats took that turn, they never looked back. Democrats gave up the working-class for “Atari” voters, a high income, tech-based middle class.

In a perverse dynamic, the more Democrats gave up on the working class, the more they championed racial diversity and gay rights. King’s dream became a moral savings account they withdraw from when they came up short on real change. Yes, Obama too. He styled himself the “Joshua generation” in Bible talk — those after Moses who got to the promised land. Guess what he did? In 2008 Wall Street crashed the global economy. Brother man bailed out bankers but not the 10 million people who lost homes. Black wealth in the United States was decimated under the first Black president. After Trump, President Biden renewed our industrial base, but his crown jewel Build Back Better was blocked by two Democratic senators. Broken promise after broken promise after broken promise.

I shook my head. We got legal weed. We got Obamacare. We got gay marriage. The United States pulled out of Afghanistan. All good. All good. But no universal healthcare or Green New Deal. No free college or trade-skill training. No stopping Wall Street from buying homes and inflating costs; no Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street trading. No end to the genocide in Gaza. None of that. What we did achieve is overwhelmed by what we constantly lose. We are left with next to nothing. We can’t eat nothing. Nothing ain’t gonna pay our rent. But we have Martin Luther King Jr. Day and now Juneteenth!

I got to the cashier. My son held the eggs up to me. I almost forgot. I put them next to the sausages and milk, gave Mohamed my debit card. I waited. I waited longer. Finally, I heard it beep.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE

“What are you two dressed for?” asked the super of my building, a friend I’ve know for years.

“We’re going to vote.” My kid tugged at my hand to hurry up. “Wanna come?”

“Sure.” He came with us and stood in line. Later, he came from behind the voting blind and asked who to vote for. Trump? Harris? He didn’t follow politics. “Harris,” I whispered. He gave me a wink and went back behind the blind.

On the way back, an eerie feeling sank in my belly. The street was lukewarm. It was not like Obama’s first election when joyful lines circled the block. Or in 2020 when, to stop Trump, lines again circled the block. Talk was loud. Laughter, too. Not in 2024. The air felt flat. The day was muted, as if passion had been rinsed by the grey clouds.

I think back on Election Day. The vibe was reflected by the data. In the United States there are 244 million citizens who can vote, but in 2024, only 155 million did, 77 million for Trump, 75 million for Harris and three million for others. Basically two million voters decided the election. Yet they are vastly outweighed by the 94 million who did not so much as sneeze near a polling place. Elections are an empty ritual. Under the media hysteria over the “swing voters” is an Everest-sized mountain of invisible people, staring at the election like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Who are the non-voters? Many of that 94 million are part of the 144 million poor and working-class. I was seized by a fever: I had to know if the people I knew — who I shared the stoop with, who I shared the bodega with, who I shared the park with — did they vote? Many did not. A lot never did. My boy with the pit bulls? He didn’t vote. What’s the point? My super? Just that once. Section 8 crew, bobbing heads to Kool & The Gang on a portable speaker? Nope, they didn’t vote. The Honduran lady selling lunches to the Mexican day workers? Nope. And yes, she’s a citizen.

Goddamn I was pissed. Steam shot from my ears like a cartoon. Didn’t they know that they were going to pay for Trump’s victory? The Republicans will cut Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, food stamps, Social Security, rental assistance for the poor, funding for environmental protection. “They are coming for us,” I thought. “Republicans are going at the budget like a blind barber with scissors. Why don’t you care?”

I drove to school, parked and hurried to class, where my students looked terrified. I asked them how they felt about Trump’s victory.

A young woman, arms crossed over her chest, bit her lip for a minute. “I’m scared about my right to choose,” she said. Her eyebrows knotted. “Already I hear guys joking, ‘Your body; my choice,’ and it’s scary.”

The classroom filled like a pressurized can.

Another student raised his hand: “I’m gay. I’m scared that my boyfriend — he lives in Texas — is he going to get hurt. Am I?” His voice shook. “Am I going to get beaten up in the street?”

His last words echoed. The air was thick and unbreathable. I thought about the Black men and women in my neighborhood who didn’t vote. I gritted my teeth. The price of eggs didn’t matter. The ability to buy a house didn’t matter. They should have voted to protect these kids right here, right in front of me.

“Look, I can’t follow you home,” I said. “That would be weird.”

“Yes,” he bobbled his head. “Well, maybe.” The class giggled.

“If you feel unsafe,” I said. “Let me know, and I’ll walk you to your car. While you’re on campus, you don’t have to learn in fear.”

When the class ended, I put the folders in my bag. He came up to me.

“Professor?” He said. “Thank you.”

THE NEW PROMISED LAND

“I just want to do God’s will,” MLK Jr. boomed his final vision. “And he’s allowed me to look over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land!”

I paused the YouTube clip. I went to a different tab. And played it.

“I want you to take a look around you and find someone you don’t know,” Sen. Bernie Sanders voice echoed from the microphone. “Maybe someone who doesn’t look like you. Are you willing to fight for that person as much as you’re willing to fight for yourself?” The crowd roared yes. The camera panned the faces, brown and pale, wearing a hijab, wearing braids and door-knocker earrings. The beauty of New York shone.

King and Bernie were like ocean waves that lifted the heart. They shared the spirit of radical love that came from embracing a deep truth: We are all human, flawed and messy but wanting to be whole. And we can’t be whole human beings unless we are in communion with others.

A lot of us, especially now, fetishize our differences, make them identities, sometimes even a career. The worst form of identity politics is when we commodify our trauma. We lose touch with reality.

The poor and the marginalized are in a constant state of emergency. I know parents burying children from gang shootings. I’ve reported from flooded cities where families shivered in the night, homeless and terrified, their eyes like flashlights searching for something, someone to hold on to. I know, just like you know, that as the earth gets hotter and more homes are destroyed, more families like them ask for help.

I shut the laptop and caught the bus to my son’s school. On the way I felt there had to be a way — a way to reignite that spirit. It’s the only path forward. It isn’t through liberalism, not the upward climb into the meritocratic elite that disguises a whole architecture of class privilege. It isn’t through militant violence that alienates the masses and invites the state to send in troops. No, no, no; none of those work now.

When I got to the school, I waited in the office and saw the child-drawn portrait of King. It looked like a multi-million-dollar Picasso. King was in bright colors and odd angles and a little distorted. An idea seen through the eyes of a child. Pure.

We need love to make visible how we are already connected. What did King say? I Googled it on my phone: “In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in inescapable of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

“Daddy!” My kid ran to me. I lifted him up and kissed him. In seconds like a giant faucet loosened, kids poured down the stairs laughing, pushing, yelling, showing each other toys. One of them had drawn in crayon this portrait of King. In a way they were all going to have to recreate his dream. Make it real again. I kissed my son again. We can start now.