“Our guys are behind your father. We need him in there.” This is what Dick Yuengling, CEO of the Pennsylvania brewery bearing his family’s name, told Eric Trump in 2016.

Perhaps they bonded over their shared good fortune of being born in to successful families and enjoying the benefits that come from winning at life without having to find your own way.

I recently responded to a comment made by a friend on Facebook about Yuengling. I merely commented that I was still boycotting Yuengling beer because of their support for Donald Trump. What I did not know, is that this friend, and her collection of friends, was from the same town where Yuengling is located. I was quickly informed, by those who grew up around him, that Dick Yuengling was a nice guy. One person claimed “the article is so biased”. The article I referenced was written by Fox News, and the quote by Dick Yuengling was not taken out of context. He was 100% advocating Donald Trump. Clearly and publicly.

But the reaction to my post, and the strong support of a high-profile Trump supporter by women who I assume (very possibly incorrectly) do not support Donald Trump, was very interesting to me.

Donald Trump is a small-minded, mean-spirited, self-centered narcissist (redundancy intentional), who happens to be in a position of authority where he can bring great harm to people. And he does.

There are many examples of behavior that validate that statement, but if we just focus on one, it might be the grave crimes against humanity that he has enacted on the masses of poor immigrants who are trying to find a better life for themselves. And more specifically, the policy he put in place that separates children from their parents — in some cases, perhaps forever. In my view, this is abhorrent, psychotic, criminal behavior. It is institutionalized crime executed under the authority of the government we elected.

Donald Trump is in power because a great many people enable him. Vote for him. Donate money to his campaign. These people move among us. They smile at us on the streets. They may drop off a cake when a family member dies. Or they may give our daughter a job when she is in high school. They are our co-workers, and they sit next to us in church.

In my view of the world, there is zero distance between a politician who commits horrific acts, and those who encourage that behavior by supporting that politician. Voting for him. Openly advocating for their support. Donating to their campaign. Using their social influences to encourage others to join in their enabling.

I have no use for that enabler. I do not forgive them for their ignorance because they are, by proxy, harming others. This is the 3rd layer. Those many among us who refuse to call out the enablers for their contribution to tragedy and sadness; they are secondary enablers.

It’s hard to do the right thing. We know this because our mothers taught us. And because we learned it in kindergarten. And because we feel it deeply embedded within us. And the hard thing is very often to stand up to a bully. Or, even stand up to a bully’s friends and enablers. But if we don’t, who will?

So when someone tells me they refuse to call out a Trump supporter because they are a ‘nice person’ or are ‘an old friend of the family’, I don’t accept that. That person is an enabler and shares in the guilt and shame of the harm this administration is doing to people, to our country, and to the world.

I don’t care if Dick Yuengling is a nice guy. I never claimed otherwise. But he is openly advocating a madman for president; that cannot and should not be forgiven. If his friends truly loved him, they would attempt to educate him on why his political choices are so destructive to so many.

We have now seen first-hand what terrible things happen with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. If we collectively don’t have the moral courage to stand up against the enablers, to resist them, to call them out for their willingness to support crimes against humanity, then we should not be surprised when we find ourselves living in a very different country in a couple more years.

Drink your Yuengling. I always thought it was crap beer even before all this Trump nonsense.