The U.S. Supreme Court has proclaimed in a series of decisions that associating with a person or people who commit a crime does not constitute conclusive proof that a defendant is guilty of that crime. But in politics, where the choice of associates, advisors and allies provides important information about the views and values of candidates and officeholders, a different standard seems appropriate.
Former President Donald Trump provides a case in point.
In November 2022, Kanye West, the rapper who calls himself Ye, had dinner with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. Nick Fuentes, an uninvited guest, accompanied him. Ye has frequently praised Hitler and Nazis. Fuentes, a prominent Holocaust-denier, white supremacist and misogynist, claims “the Founders never intended for America to be a refugee camp for nonwhite people.”
A bipartisan firestorm of criticism ensued. “You are better than this,” wrote David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel. “Even a social visit from an anti-Semite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them, and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”
Maintaining that he had “never met and knew nothing about Fuentes,” Trump posted that he “got along great” with Ye, who “expressed no anti-Semitism and I appreciated all the nice things he said about me.” Trump did not denounce either man’s hate speech.
Far-right provocateur Laura Loomer identifies herself as “a proud Islamaphobe.” She has called the 9/11 attack “an inside job,” engineered by the U.S. government. In 2017, when thousands of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean, Loomer posted, “Good,” accompanied by a handclap emoji and a toast: “Here’s to 2,000 more.” Last month, Loomer predicted that if Kamala Harris, whose mother is of Indian ancestry, is elected president, “the White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated by a call center.”
Early this year, Loomer traveled on Trump’s plane on a campaign trip to Iowa. In September, she flew with him to Philadelphia. Loomer has attended two events commemorating victims of 9/11 with the former president.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) recently characterized Loomer as “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage.”
Trump seems to have a different view. “You are a very opinionated lady,” Trump told Loomer last year. “I like that.” At a cryptocurrency conference this summer, Trump gave her a shout-out: “She’s a fantastic person, great woman.”
Responding to concerns about her influence on him, Trump maintained, “I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit.” And, perhaps most important to him, “I know she’s a big fan of the campaign…You want her on your side.”
A short list of inflammatory comments made by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson includes: a declaration following the 2016 Pulse nightclub mass shooting that “homosexuality is an abominable sin;” a claim in 2018 that “this foolishness about Hitler disarming millions of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash”; an assertion, despite acknowledging that his wife had an abortion before they were married, that “abortion is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
Nonetheless, Trump delivered a “complete and total endorsement” that helped Robinson win the GOP nomination for governor. “He’s an outstanding person,” Trump emphasized, an “incredible gentleman” who you should “cherish…like a fine wine”; “one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics.” In a campaign appearance with Robinson, Trump said the lieutenant governor was “better than Martin Luther King,” he’s MLK “on steroids.”
CNN recently discovered posts allegedly written by Robinson on an online pornography forum. “I like watching tranny on girl porn,” Robinson wrote. “It takes the man out while leaving the man in! And, yeah, I’m a perv, too.” Appearing to lament that the KKK did not admit Blacks into its ranks, Robinson indicated if he was a member he would have called MLK “Martin Luther Koon.” And Robinson opined, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”
Although Robinson has denied that the posts are his, the evidence that they are seems conclusive. Last week four top officials resigned from his campaign. All that said, Trump has yet to criticize Robinson, let alone call on him to withdraw.
In July, “after lengthy deliberation and thought,” Trump named Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate. “I couldn’t be happier,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t think it’s a secret that he’s sort of been my kind of guy.”
Vance, who once opined that conspiracy theories were “idiotic,” has spread more than his fair share of them. He says that the federal government allowed fentanyl into the country to kill conservative and rural voters. In a defense of the conspiracy theoris Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Vance once said that “believing crazy things is not the mark of whether somebody should be rejected.”
In September, Vance spread debunked allegations that Haitian immigrants were abducting, killing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “If I have to create stories so that that American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,” he told CNN, “that’s what I’m going to do.”
It seems reasonable to conclude that Ye, Fuentes, Loomer, Robinson and Vance are Donald Trump’s kind of guys. And to hope that when they cast ballots, Americans will factor in his guilt by association.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.