Dear Rebecca:

My friends at the Trumpist website AmGreatness are having a dilly of a day. First they published this:

On this day, which is no ordinary holiday for no ordinary man, let us speak a truth: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great American. He loved America, not because of the rightness of America, but because of the rights that were (and remain) so absolutely American: the right to protest for right, the right of freedom of assembly, the right of freedom of speech, the right of the freedom of the press.

He was a man of the Word, with a passion for upholding the true meaning of the words of one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. He countered physical force with soul force, because he knew—and it is a testament to the greatness of America—that he could awaken the goodness within the conscience of America.

They also published this:

The nation of immigrants concept is problematic in other ways. If this is the defining mark of the nation, the newcomer is the quintessential American, more American than actual Americans, in spite of his language, manners, and actual political ideas. By ignoring actual voters, a fetish is made of voting, even if the new American uses the procedures of self-government to impose substantive ends like sharia, socialism, or Satanism. The mere act of fleeing a bad place does not show they know or can adapt to the qualities that made this country a desirable place. Like locusts, they may simply be on the move, having destroyed their homelands—whether consciously or by accident—they may now destroy this place, and then move on to destroy another. (Emphasis added.)

This piece, one of the editors says, is one of the most important pieces ever published at AmGreatness. Ugh. It should tell you something about the dark, petty heart of the “Greatness agenda” that its soul is so small and selfish.

I won’t claim to know what MLK would’ve thought about immigrants and immigration. Suffice it to say: Under no circumstances would he have compared immigrants to locusts. He would’ve considered them children of God.

Period.

My only hope is that by praising Martin Luther King Jr., someday my friends will try to emulate his example a little more.

That’s all I can say, charitably, today.

Sincerely,

Joel