The Rorschach republic: The MLK test for a divided nation

By Melanie Sturm | Commentary, Think Again USA Substack

From ICE to Epstein to gender medicine, we keep seeing what we want in the ink blots. See if you pass the MLK Test.

Same ink blot. Different realities. Do you pass the MLK Test?

We are living through a Rorschach moment. We look at the same ink blots — the border, Epstein, gender medicine — and swear we’re seeing opposite realities.

I was reminded of that recently when I found myself seated next to a gentleman at a luncheon. We discovered easy common ground: he grew up in Indiana, I grew up in Nebraska. We traded a few jokes about Hoosiers and Huskers swapping basketball and football fortunes.

Then the conversation turned to Indiana’s former fiery basketball coach Bobby Knight, whom he idolized growing up. “Now,” he said, “I despise him.”

Bewildered, I asked why. If he admired Knight when he was throwing chairs and choking players, what changed?

His answer startled me.

“Because he supported Donald Trump,” he said. “That reflects poorly on his character.”

I asked, gently, whether he felt the same about the 81 million Americans who voted for Trump.

“Yes,” he replied, without hesitation.

Trying to keep things light, but unsettled by the shift from disagreement to disqualification, I said,

“Well, that’s very Martin Luther King Jr. of you.”

He smiled sheepishly and our conversation moved on.

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The MLK Test

That conversation stayed with me because it posed a question I can’t escape. Call it the MLK Test: if we only demand principles when they help our side win, they’re not principles — they’re weapons.

King urged us to judge by character, not by color. Increasingly, we judge by the color of a ballot.

I’m not picking on him—he’s expressing a temptation we all share. Trust collapses, and political allegiance becomes a moral X-ray: their votes reveal rotten character; ours never do. We’re staring at the same ink blot, seeing only what we want.

The MLK Test isn’t a weapon to wield against others. It’s a question we must answer for ourselves.

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The Rorschach Pattern in Our Debates

The pattern leaps from every news feed: ICE is fascism incarnate. Or ICE is besieged by sinister forces bent on open borders. The Epstein files expose a partisan conspiracy. Or they prove an international sex-trafficking ring. Pediatric gender medicine is unquestionable life-saving care. Or it is systemic malpractice.

Each side can point to fragments that confirm its view. Outrage races ahead of evidence. Suspicion outruns facts. When standards bend to fit preferred outcomes, trust frays – not just in institutions, but between us.

The real test comes when those same ink blots appear in places of real power – at the border, in elite circles, and in doctors’ offices.

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Immigration and Equal Standards

I saw how fragile equal standards can become when I served as foreman in a DUI trial. I expected a quick not-guilty verdict because the judge was clear: distinguish between drinking and driving, which is legal, and driving under the influence, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet three jurors wanted to convict anyway, despite devastatingly contradictory evidence. The officer had testified that the defendant steadied herself drunkenly on the car door – though his own body-cam footage showed otherwise. One juror deferred to the badge; the others assumed that two drinks meant impairment.

I asked: If we relax “innocent until proven guilty,” what protects us?

We ultimately settled on a lesser charge. I left unsettled — the scales had tipped, as if Lady Justice had lifted her blindfold to glance at something other than the evidence. Ironically, the statue atop our courthouse is one of the few that isn’t blindfolded.

That same drift away from evidence shows up in our immigration fights.

When protesters surround ICE facilities, swarm agents’ vehicles, or confront clergy they associate with enforcement, they invoke the moral aura of “civil disobedience.” But as King reminded us, true civil disobedience accepts legal consequences to expose injustice. It does not exempt itself from the law while obstructing others.

After my Minneapolis post last month, even critics agreed on its premise: a just society demands equal enforcement. Where we differed was on trust. Many see ICE as Gestapo-like. That reaction reflects how deep suspicion of state power runs.

If someone dies during a chaotic encounter and your stomach doesn’t knot, something in us has gone numb. Americans should never grow numb to force exercised in their name.

Order through law requires reform pursued through legislation — not through obstruction, intimidation, or executive fiat. In the wake of two killings by ICE, bipartisan proposals have emerged to require body-worn cameras, strengthen training, and increase transparency.

At the same time, immigration battles have stalled broader funding negotiations, with disaster relief and airport security caught in the crossfire. When essential services for ordinary citizens become leverage in enforcement disputes, trust erodes. That is not accountability; it is dysfunction.

Reform can strengthen enforcement; brinkmanship undermines it and erodes public confidence. A free society resolves disputes through even application of the law — not by shielding favored policies from scrutiny or by placing unrelated public goods at risk.

The same question follows power wherever it goes — from the border to the boardroom.

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Epstein and Elite Power Under the Rorschach Lens

If immigration exposes our fears about state power, Jeffrey Epstein exposes our fears about elite power. For many Americans, the lesson feels blunt: there is one set of rules for billionaires and princes, and another for everyone else.

The release of millions of pages of “Epstein files” intensified that suspicion. Allegations, emails, contact lists, photographs — raw material was poured into public view. Some victims were reportedly insufficiently redacted. Yet the release answered few core questions about money, methods, or network. It added names, but not clarity.

Under the Rorschach lens, that kind of disclosure becomes an ink blot. One person sees proof of a partisan cover-up. Another sees confirmation of a global blackmail ring. A third sees what they always suspected: proximity to power functions as protection.

Each camp can point to fragments — a dinner here, a photograph there — and construct a narrative that becomes difficult to falsify.

You do not need a CIA screenplay to explain why people orbited Epstein. You need human nature and the strange economy of access.

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