Today, The New York Times took another leap toward becoming the estranged homophobic aunt you unfriend on Facebook when it posted a cartoon depicting Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as forbidden teen lovers. The clip, which features unicorns and rainbows and plenty of smooching, is like catnip for the #resistance, a subset of Twitter eager to lampoon Trump and Putin’s recent meeting in Helsinki. The cartoon is also deeply homophobic as it relies on the idea that gayness itself is laughable, and it’s time for progressives to stop excusing these kinds of jokes.

The animation, published late last month, is part of a series called “Trump Bites,” in which animator Bill Plympton illustrates Trump’s inner world using real Presidential quotes for narration. The most recent installment is titled “Trump and Putin: A Love Story,” and tells the tale of a smitten Trump daydreaming about Putin in his room; recordings of the real Trump praising Putin play ambiently. Putin eventually arrives to pick up Trump in his car — topless, of course. Cartoon Trump, his heart aflutter, jumps in the passenger seat. He cautiously inches his tiny hand over to rest on Putin’s, and then loses his shirt.

Even describing the video feels like writing bottom-of-the-barrel slash fiction, and in many ways, that’s exactly what it is. The two have an excruciatingly detailed makeout sesh and ride off on a unicorn, a scene that would be incomplete without rainbows. While MAGA trolls predictably had none of it, many queer people also took to Twitter to express their disappointment in the cartoon, which they say relies on homophobic tropes.

This kind of “comedy” is nothing new among the #Resist crowd on Twitter. The Late Show host Stephen Colbert provided a notorious example when he presented his audience with an image of Trump and Putin riding a unicorn together, Putin in a full face of makeup. The crux of the joke, the common argument goes, is that Putin, who has instituted anti-gay laws in Russia, hates gay people, and therefore it is hilarious to depict him as gay. It’s his (and Trump’s) homophobia that is being mocked, not gayness.

Other “it’s funny because they’re gay” offenders include Bette Midler, Chelsea Handler, and Jimmy Kimmel. Midler cracked a joke about Trump and Putin traveling to Finland for a blowjob ahead of the meeting, while Handler and Kimmel made “bottom” quips about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Trump, respectively. But these examples are mere drops in the realm of “Trump and Putin are gay for each other” jokes; Twitter is littered with insinuations that the two are lovers. Because progressivism, or something.

Concern over this kind of humor isn’t being raised to protect Trump or Putin from mockery. These are two of the most mockable people on the planet, and it’s hard to think of anyone more deserving of being pilloried. Nor is it about being precious or being offended just for the hell of it. It’s about calling a spade a spade: homophobia is not suddenly cute or acceptable when it’s Democrats who trade in it. These jokes are homophobic, full stop.

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Sure, Trump and Putin probably hate being depicted as gay lovers. But let’s stop pretending that’s a good justification, or that calling them “gay” is radical somehow because they don’t like gay people. This isn’t any different from how the word “gay” has historically been used as an insult. Many insecure, homophobic straight men hate being called gay because they hate gay people. That’s always been the case. It’s why “gay” is such a popular insult in middle school. The crux of the insult doesn’t change just because it’s coming out of the mouth of someone who has gay friends; that’s not how this works.

It’s also worth considering how closeted people likely feel when they see jokes like this, which use gayness to insult someone. Homosexuality’s social stigma is what makes these images so scandalous, and it’s that same stigma that keeps many from being able to come out, lest they be mocked or deemed inferior. It’s not immediately clear how cartoons and jokes like these amount to anything more than scrawling “GAY” over someone’s yearbook picture. So why are so many pretending they’re more than that?

We live in drastic times, and people are looking for any way possible to get Trump’s goat. That much is understandable. And to be clear, I also support the mission of irritating Donald Trump. But it’s not subversive to buy into oppressive norms to do it. It’s not about taking the high road; at this point, I think the high road has all but collapsed. It’s about recognizing that there’s nothing radical about using the LGBTQ+ community as the butt of your weak joke, at the precise time that LGBTQ+ people are being targeted because of the very stigma you’re perpetuating for a few retweets.

Straight people, you do us no favors by painting our oppressors in our likeness. Trump and Putin aren’t secret gay lovers, and there are other ways to portray the bond they share. It’s a bond powerful heterosexual men have held for ages, one that has far more to say about insecure heterosexual men than it does about anything gay, and you shouldn’t expect a pass on your homophobia just because you’ve cleared the lowest hurdle of wanting this monster out of office.

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