What to write about?

Just last week alone, Trump seemed to average more than one crisis a day. Iran. Venezuela. Greenland (imagine going back in time and trying to explain a crisis with Greenland), Minnesota, blue states in general, Ford workers, the Fed chairman, the environment, climate change treaties. I’m sure there’s more.

It’s part of his overall modus operandi: create distractions and poke the wound to keep your enemies – and it’s weird to think a President of the United States sees half the populace as his enemy instead of his boss – off guard.

So which of those topics am I focusing on this week? Which should get my attention?

The answer is none of the above.

Today would be the 97th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The nation officially celebrates it Monday, the 41st commemoration of King’s birth since President Ronald Reagan signed the law creating the holiday.

And instead of focusing on the crap Trump throws at us, imagine instead how Dr. King would handle it – and maybe learn from it.

It isn’t as if Dr. King would have been shocked by what Trump and his supporters are. He would have known that stench.

It’s the same garbage he faced at the Birmingham bus boycott, being sent to a notorious Georgia prison for violating the probation from a dubious traffic ticket, the violence inflicted on his supporters in Selma, the harassment he faced marching for fair housing in Chicago.

It’s the same garbage he dealt with as J. Edgar Hoover tapped his telephones and race-baiting Southern governors called him every name they could. 

We’re rightly horrified by what happened to Renee Nicole Goode, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman murdered by an ICE goon. In King’s time, he watched in horror as people got away with murdering civil rights workers like Viola Liuzzo, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. He never lived to see anyone held accountable for the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Church that killed four girls.

Through all of that, King stood unafraid. He understood that there might be a price to pay. He paid it on an April evening in Memphis. 

But he didn’t flinch – or at least not in the eyes of the people who admire him. When he died, he was fighting alongside Memphis sanitation workers seeking a living wage – King having realized that there wasn’t much chance of racial justice without financial justice.

One amazing thing about Dr. King is that he died at age 39. That’s about half an average American lifetime. It’s less than half Trump’s age. Because his life and times ended in the 1960s, there’s a perception of age and wisdom that just isn’t real. 

But we should know better. My generation tends to dismiss younger people as disinterested and apathetic. We hear about incels and bros and cluegys and other such terms of derision. 

My experience is different. When I taught at a New Jersey university a decade ago, the students were young people trying to advance themselves while holding down part-time or full-time jobs. Some of them served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many were the first generation in their family ever to attend college.

Their world was made better by what Dr. King did in his life. And many, many of them are looking to return the favor, working in their communities, mentoring children, volunteering at hospitals and veterans centers.

In politics, we are seeing what inclusion means when we look at a Zohran Mamdani, who in his first weeks as mayor of New York has devoted himself to making life better and easier for all of the city’s citizens. Not just the ones who voted for him.

Young people deserve a chance to lead. Give them the chance, give them Martin Luther King as an example, and see how our country, our world can be better.

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It’s a few days before the holiday, but you can bet the ranch that Trump will minimize it. His administration already has – Dr. King’s birthday was one of a few days a year during which national parks and monuments were free.

Not any more. Instead of King Day – and Juneteenth, the new holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States – you can now get into National Park Service-run sites on June 14. Which happens to be Trump’s birthday.

Trump mouthpiece Karoline Leavitt will talk about how it’s a normal workday at the White House – which doesn’t mean he won’t play 18 at his golf course in Florida. And I’m sure a lot of federal employees will report to the office if they know what’s good for them – some MAGA commissar taking attendance.

But you and I and anyone else who cherishes what this country is supposed to mean should take at least a moment on Monday to think about and reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Read one of his speeches. Glance through – or read for the first time – one of the excellent books about him and the civil rights movement. Watch “Selma” or “King: Montgomery to Memphis” or a wonderful HBO film called “Boycott” with Jeffrey Wright as Dr. King.

Remember Dr. King on his birthday. That’s why the holiday exists. And let us all try to channel his moral courage and intelligence as the fight to save our democracy grows fiercer amid the chaos Trump creates.