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The Mandatory Scribble: Trump Discovers MLK Day Only After Being Bullied Into It

Buck Valor
Written by
Buck ValorPersiflating Non-Journalist
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
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A cynical oil painting of a gold-leafed desk with a single, lonely, official-looking document on it, surrounded by screaming headlines on television screens and a background of grey, industrial smoke, in the style of Edward Hopper meets Ralph Steadman.

There is a specific brand of exhaustion that comes from watching the highest office in the land treat basic administrative traditions like a teenager being forced to clean their room. The latest installment of this pathetic theater involves Donald Trump finally, belatedly, and with all the enthusiasm of a man facing a root canal, issuing a proclamation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It took a chorus of criticism from civil rights groups to remind the administration that the third Monday of January is, in fact, a federal holiday and not just an annoying gap in the news cycle where they can’t announce new tariffs on artisanal cheeses.

The delay was, in itself, a masterclass in the kind of shambolic incompetence we have come to expect. While previous administrations—regardless of their actual policies—at least had the basic PR sense to have the paperwork ready, the current residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seem to operate on a 'if we ignore it, maybe it will go away' philosophy. But reality, much like a persistent debt collector or a looming impeachment inquiry, rarely goes away. When the civil rights groups started pointing out the conspicuous silence and the lack of scheduled commemorative events, the administration scrambled. The result was a proclamation that carried the heavy, sulfurous scent of a man who was told he wouldn't get his dessert until he finished his vegetables.

Of course, the critics are just as exhausting as the man they criticize. The performative outrage from the professional grievance industry suggests that a piece of paper signed by a man who clearly hasn't read 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' would somehow alter the fabric of American society. They treat these proclamations like sacred relics, as if the ink from Trump’s Sharpie possesses the alchemical power to transmute systemic rot into gold. It is a battle of symbols for people who have long since abandoned the pursuit of substance. The Left needs the proclamation so they can complain about its insincerity; the Right needs it so they can pretend they’ve checked the 'diversity' box for the fiscal year. It is a symbiotic relationship of vapid posturing.

Let’s look at the actual content of these proclamations—not just Trump’s, but the entire genre. They are exercise in historical taxidermy. They take a radical, anti-war, pro-labor revolutionary like King and stuff him with the sawdust of platitudes until he is safe enough to sit in a middle-school hallway. They strip away the parts where he criticized the 'white moderate' or the 'triple evils' of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. Instead, we get a Hallmark-approved version of 'The Dream' that serves as a convenient anesthetic for a country that prefers its heroes dead and non-threatening. Trump issuing this document isn't an insult to King’s legacy; the document itself is the insult, a bland ritual of state-sponsored amnesia.

The fact that Trump didn’t want to attend any events is perhaps the only honest thing about this entire episode. Why should he? Why should anyone pretend that the current GOP—a party that views voting rights as a personal affront to their job security—has any interest in the actual mission of the man they are nominally celebrating? At least by being a no-show, Trump was accidentally transparent. But the 'norms' must be maintained. The beltway insiders demand the dance. So, the proclamation was issued, the box was checked, and the collective IQ of the nation dropped another few points as we debated the timing of a press release.

The Right will now use this proclamation to claim they are the 'real' heirs to King’s legacy, usually while simultaneously gutting the very protections King fought for. They love the 'content of their character' line because they’ve weaponized it into a shield against any discussion of systemic inequity. Meanwhile, the Left will continue to act as though a presidential signature is the only thing standing between us and total societal collapse. Both sides are trapped in a feedback loop of meaninglessness, fighting over the scraps of a dead man’s rhetoric while the country continues its slow, rhythmic slide into the abyss.

In the end, we are left with a piece of paper that means nothing, issued by a man who didn’t want to sign it, demanded by people who won’t be satisfied by it. It is the perfect American moment: loud, expensive, and entirely hollow. We have successfully turned a day of reflection into a day of bureaucratic bickering. Congratulations to everyone involved. You’ve managed to make the struggle for human dignity feel like a HR meeting that could have been an email.

This story is an interpreted work of social commentary based on real events. Source: NY Times

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