Donald Trump Loyalty Day

Photo via Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)

Donald Trump declares May 1 as Loyalty Day—and Twitter is loving the irony

It's a day that's been around for six decades.

 

Josh Katzowitz

Internet Culture

Posted on Apr 29, 2017   Updated on May 24, 2021, 4:06 pm CDT

President Donald Trump has declared next Monday as Loyalty Day, writing in a presidential proclamation that it shall be a day that “we recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles upon which our nation is built.”

Almost immediately, Twitter went to work on the concept of loyalty and what it means to Trump.

But before those who oppose Trump get into too much of a huff, realize this: Loyalty Day has been around for six decades.

As the Nation points out, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to declare a Loyalty Day, and it’s been celebrated by everybody from JFK to Ronald Reagan and from Nixon to Obama. As the Los Angeles Times wrote, it was first known as Americanization Day in 1921, and “it arose in response to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and growing radicalism in a swelling U.S. labor movement.”

So, Trump isn’t exactly treading on new ground.

But that doesn’t mean some people can’t see the irony of Trump celebrating the concept of loyalty.

Share this article
*First Published: Apr 29, 2017, 10:39 am CDT