Trump Inauguration Pastor Invokes MLK, Launches Crypto

Holy Nelly, nationalism, and Nazi salutes, y’all — President Donald Trump’s second inauguration were every bit as annoying as his first, and he had some equally annoying help this time from a cringey clergyman.  

It was annoying to watch Trump and his mindless loyalists celebrate. It was annoying to watch this billionaire who surrounds himself with billionaires and promises to make billionaires more billionaire-iffic be praised as a man of the American people and for the working class. It was annoying to watch a raging orangey-white nationalist who spent his entire campaign promoting racism and bigotry invoke the name of Martin Luther King Jr.  — and it was even more annoying to watch a Black pastor help him do it.

Meet Rev. Lorenzo Sewell. He’s annoying.

From The Associated Press:

The prayer by a Michigan pastor heavily cited King’s seminal “I Have a Dream” speech alongside the Declaration of Independence, patriotic songs and gospel hymns.

In his spirited roughly three-minute invocation on Monday, Rev. Lorenzo Sewell thanked God for the incoming Trump administration and prayed “that America would begin to dream again.”

The comments were at times a near complete rendition of King’s 1963 address. He asked God to “let freedom ring” nationwide and ensure that Americans are “free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Sewell was a mainstay of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. He hosted Trump at his church in June, spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, and attended numerous campaign roundtables of faith leaders and pro-Trump conservative Christian rallies.

Sewell, a pastor at the non-denominational 180 Church on the west side of Detroit, just couldn’t sing the praises of his little apricot-tinted overseer without making Trump out to be the white savior who will Miss Millie Dr. King’s “dream” into a reality for Black people everywhere. It would be nice if these Black MAGA supporters could simply shuck and jive on their own identities instead of name-dropping MLK while tap-dancing all over his legacy for Caucasian acceptance.

As it turns out, Sewell isn’t only using his connection to Trump to deliver the good word from the bowels of the Holy Sunken Place — he’s also hustling crypto for the Lord.

According to Protos, just hours after Trump was sworn into office, Sewell announced the launch of “LORENZO,” a crypto token that he says will help him and his followers to “accomplish the vision that God has called us to do in our Earth.” Look, obviously, Sewells’ entire existence sounds like an unaired episode of The Boondocks, but this is all very much in character, considering his MAGA messiah is a 34-time felon who sells bibles when he’s not cheating on his wives and paying hush money to prostitutes.

Not that we needed more evidence that Sewell is a false prophet selling his congregation false ways to make a profit (see what I did there?), but the token that Sewell (who is also a token) is pushing is down 97%.

From Protos:

According to GeckoTerminal the token was launched at 18:50 (GMT) and reached a high of $0.0353710 within three hours. However, it then plummeted almost 97% percent in just 30 minutes.

Many weren’t impressed by the pastor’s crypto pivot. One user said, “This pastor going to hell bruh lol,” while the X account Republicans Against Trump said, “Have you no shame?”

In his post, Sewell claims, “I have permanently locked my tokens into a Liquidity Pool so that I will never sell on the community but rather just earn fees as our token continues to flourish!”

Welp — you get what you prayed for, I guess.