'Not one of us:' Professional clown community rejects Trump comparison
Clowns are pushing back after years of being compared to President Donald Trump, with Tim Cunningham, board president of the nonprofit organization Clowns Without Borders, saying the insult cheapens what he calls a “sacred art form.”
“Let’s find a better metaphor to despise and depose fascism,” Cunningham wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in The Washington Post. “Keep ‘clown’ out of Trumpian comparisons, and for that matter, all politics. Offer ‘clown’ the respect it deserves and invoke us for good: in alliance with other artists, activists and humans who believe in a better, happier world.”
Launched in 1995, Clowns Without Borders is a nonprofit organization that performs clown shows for communities in hardship, often those ravaged by natural disasters or armed conflict. Cunningham, who joined the organization in 2023, recently performed for children in Beirut, Lebanon following Israel’s invasion of the country last October, and air strikes that leveled apartment buildings and damaged hospitals....
