Association is currency.

Association is currency. I want more for everyone featured in the image above. I also want more for the people I know personally who’ve compromised their moral legacy for a photo op with an unrepentant white supremacist sexual predator who’s locked arms with V. Putin & Prince Bonesaw. Nevertheless, we become what we normalize.

I don’t love speaking of anyone this way. I know that nobody anywhere is just a bigot or a bully or an unrepentant white supremacist sexual predator. In this case, the person I’m referring to, baptized as an infant within my denomination, is the man seated. After a recording surfaced which included him boasting aloud of an act of sexual assault, I decided that, were he to become our president, his abusive behavior would become my/our responsibility and that it would be important for me to speak of him aloud in a way that recognized (rather than smoothing over or normalizing) that behavior. I’ve been at it for about ten years now. The white supremacist part begins with his public call (not yet retracted) for the execution of the children who came to be called the Exonerated Five. His recent description of our Somali neighbors goes further down that road. I’m serious when I say want good things for him (and everyone pictured). Famous people sometimes get talked into bad decisions. I imagine they are also sometimes threatened.

Association is currency.

Stay safe, America.