Sorry, we’re not sorry for the Putin portrait prank

My Turn

Re: “Putin portrait prank nothing to chuckle at,” Aug. 24 Krista Kafer column

In late July, FOX31 reported that zero dollars had been raised to pay for a portrait of President Donald Trump to add to the Colorado Capitol’s Hall of Presidential Portraits. In previous years, donations for presidential portraits were easy to obtain. Donald Trump’s, on the other hand, was encountering serious difficulty.

The Trump administration’s daily scandals and embarrassments have left much of the nation numb. Many folks simply shrug when Trump calls the press the “enemy of the people,” disparages women, immigrants, and anyone else who dares oppose him.

We’re no longer outraged or surprised when he ruins relationships with our allies and coddles our enemies. As new details validate the longstanding allegations that Trump colluded with a foreign power to influence the election, and instructed his attorney to pay hush-money to a porn star to cover up an extramarital affair, we don’t even blink.

It’s possible that the worst of all of Trump’s misdeeds, when history finally records them, will simply be how his disregard for precedent, decency, and the interests of the majority of Americans, became the new normal.

Colorado didn’t vote for Trump. A majority of Coloradans do not support this president. That’s why, before the lack of a Trump portrait in the Colorado Capitol made global headlines, nobody cared to give even one dollar to honor Trump in our state. The blank space where Trump’s portrait should be was a demonstration all by itself.

After the president’s humiliating prostration before Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, the opportunity to make a statement that could shake us from our national numbness was too good to pass up for my political advocacy organization ProgressNow Colorado.

Did we think this harmless prank would appear in almost every major media outlet in the world? Of course not — but the fact that it did make global headlines, twice, proves we were only depicting visually what so many were already thinking.

My only regret in all of this is that a friend was disciplined as a result of our actions. Next time, we’ll use the front door.