Former President Donald Trump has been trumpeting his skills as the Black people whisperer for a minute now — so it’s only fitting that he would crown the next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
While in North Carolina, Trump endorsed North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson for Governor. But Trump didn’t give a boilerplate endorsement speech.
Instead, he called Robinson “Martin Luther King on Steroids.”
“This is Martin Luther King on steroids,” he said. “I told that to Mark, I said I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re Marin Luther King times two.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has compared Robinson to the late-great civil rights icon. Although this time, he really added some pizzaz with the “on steroids” comment.
In each retelling of the time Trump allegedly told Robinson he reminded him of MLK but better — the Black lieutenant Governor doesn’t sound super pleased. “I wasn’t sure was he angry because that’s a terrible thing to say or was he complimented,” said Trump. “I have never figured it out.”
Part of what Trump could be picking up on is the fact that Robinson doesn’t even like Dr. King.
Robinson once called the Civil Rights Movement a “communist plot to subvert capitalism,” adding that “so many freedoms were lost during the Civil Rights movement.”
There’s also all of the other anti-Black things he’s said over the years — including but not limited to the time he told Black people should pay reparations.
“If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes,” said Robinson during the 2021 North Carolina Republican Party Convention, seemingly referring to Black Americans. “Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you. After those fields were ended and slavery was ended, somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you. Somebody fought wars and died for you. Somebody lived less than because they didn’t have what you have, and they did it for you. There are people in their graves right now, and they are there because they were willing to stand up and fight for you.”
There’s also the time he blamed Black Africans for the slave trade in a 2017 Facebook post.
It was AFRICANS who fought wars against AFRICANS and then enslaved the losers. It was victorious AFRICAN warriors who sold defeated AFRICAN warriors to European slave traders in exchange for cloth, guns, and money. It was AFRICANS that facilitated the kidnaping of other AFRICANS to be marched off to the slave forts on the AFRICAN coast. It was AFRICANS who watched as AFRICANS were sailed away in the belly of slave ships toward the brutal system of chattel slavery. It was AFRICANS who increased their power through the enslavement of AFRICANS. And today it is AFRICANS who are still doing this to AFRICANS.
Now I ask you. Why would I want to put the name of the culture that fought to sell black people into slavery, in front of the name of the culture that fought to FREE black people from slavery? As far as I’m concerned, the moment the long lost ancestor that created my bloodline here in AMERICA was sold in AFRICA my ties to that continent were CUT.
But sure, MLK on steroids seems fitting.