Trump-Lewis row heightens partisan tensions as MLK weekend begins

The President-Elect began the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend by becoming involved in a Twitter spat with civil rights icon and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who had said he would be boycotting Trump’s inauguration this coming Friday and that Trump was not a “legitimate” President.

John Lewis is the last surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington led by Dr King.

The Washington Post reports:

(Lewis’s) comments prompted anger from Republicans — even those who do not support Trump — who said that Democrats are disregarding their own breathless warnings during the campaign about the risks of failing to accept the election results.

“We listened to Democrats for the last two months of the campaign say that any suggestion that the elections weren’t legitimate and the results wouldn’t be accepted is dangerous and unpatriotic,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. “Now those same people are trying to delegitimize Trump and say that he shouldn’t be elected president.”

Trump’s comments were all the more charged as they came at the start of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and were seen as dismissive of Lewis’s work in the civil right movement, a time when he was subjected to arrest and assault. Adding to the racial overtones is the disparagement of Lewis’s district, which is majority black, as “crime infested.”

https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/820305053248536576

Perhaps inevitably…

and, perhaps failing to see any irony at all..

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AMERICA IN TRANSITION

https://twitter.com/SarahLerner/status/820139679378849793

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MEDIA

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BUSINESS

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