For those of us who grew up watching the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has died at 84, he didn’t just march for freedom and rights. He charted a deeper path. For six decades, the man who stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and watched his mentor, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., struck down by an assassin’s bullet, carried King’s message of the “Beloved Community” for the rest of his life.King’s Beloved Community was a vision of a society rooted in justice, unconditional love, and nonviolence, a place where poverty, hunger, and hate are replaced with reconciliation and inclusivity. For the stubbornly determined Jackson, it was not a fantasy. It was achievable through collective action to dismantle systemic inequality and promote peace.Those were Jackson’s causes. His dying wishes. He never wavered. For a long time, he was the moral compass in America. But now, as we mourn him, we find ourselves in a country that isn’t just losing its way — it is actively ripping apart the Beloved Community.Jackson believed in the Beloved Community. Donald Trump pushes “America First” and “Us versus Them.” A town square where Black, brown, and marginalized people don’t belong. Consider the nature and temperament of these two men. The contrast is stark. Jackson’s life was defined by sacrifice that included arrests, threats, and racism, the grinding work of coalition-building among people who didn’t always agree but believed in shared dignity. He was steeped in a theology of service. He was convinced leadership meant standing last in line and speaking first for those with no voice.Trump’s public life is defined by vilification of others and glorification of self. He looks down on the downtrodden. He denigrates marginalized communities, mocks the disabled. He stokes division, hoards wealth, exalts power. After brushes with death, he suggests God spared him so he could impose policies that cause suffering. Jackson absorbed blows for the powerless. Trump deflects responsibility to them. One saw public office as a crusade for morality. The other treats it as a platform for retribution and enrichment.History will record that one man bent over backward to widen the circle of American democracy while the other narrowed it to fit the dimensions of his own: white, straight, nationalistic, shielded by phony Christianity.Where Jackson possessed moral courage, willing to lose elections but win ground for justice, Trump has shown the instinct to dominate rather than persuade, to mock rather than minister. Jackson accepted defeat. Trump calls losses “rigged” and a “hoax.”Jackson’s masculinity was rooted in empathy. Famously, he cried when Barack Obama was elected president. He prayed with striking workers and linked arms with immigrants, laborers, civil rights marchers, and LGBTQ+ Americans, long before it was politically safe. Trump’s brand of strength is transactional, not transformative. He uses ferocity as proof of toughness, a barrage of insults to telegraph a dark vision.To Jackson, the marginalized were people. Trump calls them threats. In the measure that matters, character, Jackson towered. Trump stands diminished by the smallness of the ideals he champions. Trump is unforgiving. He is beyond imperfect — lecherous, unrepentant, remorseless. This is not to canonize Jackson. He was flawed. He fathered a child out of wedlock, made antisemitic remarks, could be vindictive. But when he was wrong, he apologized. When last week Trump posted a grotesque video depicting the Obamas as apes, he refused to say “I’m sorry,” one of countless wrongs left unacknowledged.On Tuesday, Trump used his tribute to Jackson to aggrandize himself and take a pointless swipe at Obama.The timing of Jackson’s death is more than tragic. It is darkly ironic. He leaves as the “Rainbow Coalition” he painstakingly built, synonymous with the Beloved Community, is being dismantled, color by color, by an administration that treats civil rights not as a moral imperative but as “woke,” discrimination against white men.Consider the blatant assault on civil rights enforcement. Jackson spent his career forcing corporate America to reflect the nation’s diversity. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an order effectively criminalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government. This administration has deployed the Justice Department against institutions that prioritize diversity.Trump’s siege extends to the ballot box. Jackson’s life was defined by voter registration drives and barrier-breaking campaigns. Now we witness the most aggressive rollback of voting access since Jim Crow.