MLK Jr.'s Daughter Shows Donald Trump Is A Threat

For all that Donald Trump's campaign lacks, the Republican nominee has proven his skill in at least one political trick: he is incredibly effective at using a dog whistle to rile up his supporters. The Clinton campaign is arguing that he did just that in what may be his most disturbing use of coded language to date. In reference to "the 2nd Amendment people" being able to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court judges, Trump may have subtly suggested to enact violence against the Democratic candidate. And the daughter of civil rights leader and assassination victim Martin Luther King Jr., Bernice King, responded to Trump's statement. Clearly, she did not find Trump's deplorable assassination "joke" funny.

Trump made his latest remark at a North Carolina rally on Tuesday, once again pivoting into an off-message spiral after spending the weekend relatively on topic. The GOP nominee returned to his favorite NRA style pandering, informing his audience that Clinton would take away their rights if elected president. "Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. And by the way, if she gets to pick her judges: Nothing you can do, folks," Trump said. "Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know." As King pointed out, this seemed like a thinly veiled call to violence.

Though in a released statement, the Trump campaign insisted their nominee was saying that "the 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit" and that his words were in reference to the apparent droves of gun-toting voters making their way to the booths for Trump this election season. In other words: Nothing about an assassination here, folks, move along.

But King understandably wasn't buying the campaign's act:

Mic reported that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook wholeheartedly agreed with King's sentiments: "This is simple — what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way."

King distinctly understood that Trump's words can have a true and devastating impact. She lost her father in 1968 when she was only five years old. As King's family mourned their father's assassination, the world likewise lost one of its greatest civil rights leaders and activists. To throw around the idea of assassinating anyone — let alone a presidential nominee and one of the greatest political leaders of our time — is a clear clue into just how morally crippled Trump's rhetoric is.

Perhaps just as disturbing is the likely reality that by next week, Trump will have given his supporters a whole new, reckless idea to latch onto.