One, Just One Question, For My Republican Brethren…

I have a single question for Trump voters.

Do you agree with his decision to hire a white supremacist for the top administrative position in the White House?

If you do, then there is little to discuss. We’ve met an impasse in our discourse.

If you do not, do you intend to do anything about it?

There is, I’m told, a flaw in my argument, namely that Steve Bannon has never personally expressed white supremacist views.

That’s almost true. Certainly his wife testified in court that he refused to let his kids go to schools with too many Jewish kids, or, as he put it “whiny Jewish brats”. But that was a divorce proceeding, and we’re obligated to take what either side says about the other with a grain of salt.

So let’s look at Bannon.

When he became the executive chairman of Breitbart News, Breitbart was already on the fringe right. He pushed it further to the right, where they began publishing stories like:

• Why Equality and Diversity Departments Should Only Hire Rich, Straight White Men
• Would you Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?
• There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews
• The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ is Simple: Women Should Log Off
• Attack of the Lying Breastapo Feminazis

This is not “The Onion”. These aren’t jokes.

If you still think he’s not a white supremacist, fine, but the KKK disagrees with you. They have lauded the appointment. Former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke called it “Excellent,” saying “[I] think that anyone that helps complete the program and the policies that President-elect Trump has developed during the campaign is a very good thing, obviously. So it’s good to see that he’s sticking to the issues and the ideas that he proposed as a candidate. Now he’s president-elect and he’s sticking to it and he’s reaffirming those issues… You have an individual, Mr. Bannon, who’s basically creating the ideological aspects of where we’re going.”

That is the former head of the KKK in glowing support of one of the most important White House appointments yet, and it’s not because he likes the layout of the Breitbart webpage.

And what’s even more scary is, this isn’t an accident. It’s not like Mr. Trump didn’t know these things when he hired Bannon. Steve Bannon was first hired on August 17th to co-direct the Trump campaign with Kellyanne Conway (who, while being the public face, was only co-director). Breitbart’s stories and reputation had been well established, and if Trump had somehow been ignorant of them, he learned about it when the lame stream media exploded the next day. Even if Trump fires Bannon, under pressure from the Politically Correct Gestapo, what does it say that this is the man he wants—both running the campaign, and the White House?

There’s no gray area here, it’s a binary issue. You can’t be “almost pregnant”, and you can’t be “kind of” against this. You either support it, or not. If you do, you are in the company of white nationalists and Klansmen (and if you’re okay with that, it says more about you than those you oppose). If you are against it… What does this mean about Trump himself, and what do you intend to do about it?

Being moral isn’t just about saying “I’m not a racist”—it’s about standing up and opposing racism. The first is easy, but it’s meaningless without the second.

This is unprecedented, and has many people terrified (and rightly so, if you’re a minority). This man must be opposed, unrelentingly, or you tacitly condone him.

So let me ask again… do you support Trump’s decision to hire a white supremacist for the top administrative position in the White House?

It’s easy to say you’re a good person, but values aren’t what you say–they’re what you do, and not just when life is easy, but when times get tough, too. If you don’t believe we should be putting white supremacists in positions of power, will you stand up and oppose it? Will you share this, will you talk to your friends, will you make your voice heard?

Thank you.