I learned something a few years back and that is do not go into business with Trumpers. In my case, I didn’t know the organization was the type that’d support Trump but when I found out, I thought to myself, “This could go bad,” and eventually, it went bad.

I found out during a video call in 2016. I had only been freelancing for an online English-language newspaper in Costa Rica for a few months and we were still getting to know each other. I wasn’t even sure of their political leanings at this point as most of my work was on Costa Rica issues aimed at expats living in that country. During the call, I made a joke about Trump and then the publisher spoke up and told me he liked Trump. This was during the debates, I believe.

His argument was that since Trump was a billionaire, then we should make him president because billionaires are successful. He was a Canadian in Costa Rica, so he didn’t have a say in our election, but he was pretty passionate about it. He said we should make Trump our president because it would be really good for us. He also said billionaires expected to be given stuff like Trump expected to be given the presidency, and quite frankly, he deserved it. That’s when I swallowed and thought to myself, “f–k.”

It wasn’t just his Trumpism that concerned me, but that as a supposed newspaper publisher, he believed billionaires should be given whatever they wanted, like the presidency, without being challenged or questioned. It wasn’t a strong endorsement of democracy. The last time I looked, both, Costa Rica and Canada are democracies.

There was a time when liberals and conservatives could be friends and agree to disagree, but those days are mostly gone because I can’t agree to disagree when we can’t even agree on the facts. I also can’t agree to simply disagree with hate and inhumanity.

It didn’t take long for this publisher’s lack of ethics to emerge. He asked me to copy a drawing from another cartoonist, steal an idea from a meme, and draw a cartoon making fun of refugees coming into Costa Rica fleeing Nicaragua. He also helpfully suggested that for my syndication business, I draw pro-Trump cartoons alongside my anti-Trump cartoons because that’d be good for business. The paper initially subscribed to my syndication service in addition to paying me to produce exclusive original content for them. Eventually, they stopped subscribing to the syndicated stuff, not by telling me outright but just by ceasing paying for those. I didn’t say anything about it and just removed him from the syndication email list.

The Publisher didn’t just fail at understanding journalism ethics, he didn’t understand ethics period. He expressed a dislike for Costa Ricans on multiple occasions. He also published a right-wing columnist living in Costa Rica who believed every Qanon story that came out (who was also ignorant and stupid, once claiming that if elected, Biden would “fire” William Barr, and once wrote that blacks in England are “African-Americans”). There was no fact-checking. To research my cartoons, I used their rival, The Tico Times, another English-language Costa Rican newspaper, which I also used whenever I was assigned a subject because I learned not to trust the stories or statements of facts from the publication I was working for.

I also wondered, and I still do, why do people who hate brown people move to Latin America?

At first, the organization was great about paying. Although they paid me through PayPal and they didn’t eat those fees, I did. Then the publisher asked/demanded me to increase the number of cartoons I drew for them while cutting the price they paid for each cartoon. After seeing my timelapse videos for my syndicated cartoons, they asked me to do the same for them, instructing me how they wanted the intro and outro to read while not offering to pay me for them (they’re still on their YouTube channel (and the majority of their video content). And then, payments started to come in late.

They would miss a couple months and then they’d catch up. Then they’d miss even more months but eventually catch up. Eventually, they went several months without paying me. And then I hit a wall.

The cartoons were published on Fridays, usually in the afternoon. I submitted some ideas on a Thursday and I didn’t get a reply even though several of the publication’s staffers were CC’ed. Eventually, I just picked one myself and drew it, and I had done this before when I didn’t get a response. On Friday evening, the publisher emailed that he didn’t want that cartoon and told me to draw something else. I told him no because he had over 24 hours to reply to the ideas I sent and I wasn’t drawing another thing for him until they paid me for the four months of cartoons they owed me.

When I replied about the non-payments, I hit reply all, which allowed his staff to see he was being a deadbeat. This pissed off the editor and he called me unprofessional and threw the entire thing on me. He said he didn’t know if he wanted to keep working with me because of my “unprofessionalism.” He said he couldn’t trust me anymore, although I still haven’t been paid. He initially blamed his wife for the nonpayments as she was the one who usually sent the payment, but somehow they went months and months without discussing it. I told him he couldn’t throw this on me and I wasn’t discussing his b.s. until he paid me. I even offered for them to start a payment plan. I never got anything. The publisher said they would soon make a “dent” in the debt, but they still owe me over $2,200, and this is without interest. This was in 2019.

The publisher will probably think it’s unprofessional for me to expose them this way, though I haven’t posted their name. If you’re halfway decent with research, it won’t be hard to figure it out. I have sent a few letters since, but they stopped replying in 2019.

At this point, I was ready to move on from the publication. It became a huge chore to draw a cartoon for them each week, researching subjects, waiting forever for a reply, from the publisher, getting a heavy dose of b.s. when I did, and then not even being paid for it. I had just started freelancing for CNN too and I wanted more time for that gig, you know…one that pays. I was done with them I wanted to give them a chance to keep me. They failed. I’m pretty sure the publisher knew I was done drawing free cartoons for them.

I’m also not in the habit of exposing clients who owe me money or whom I had a difficult relationship with. You would not believe how many of my clients, and former clients, that owe me money…and you would be surprised to find out who some of them are. I’m not talking about clients who run a month or two behind, I’m talking about clients who go several months and even over a year. I don’t expose them. I think that would be bad for business, although not paying people for the content in your publication should also be bad for business.

The moral of this story, other than don’t go into business with this specific newspaper, is don’t go into business with Trumpers.

Donald Trump also has a history of not paying people who work for him, or paying less than what was agreed upon. Donald Trump even has a history of not paying his lawyers who represent him in lawsuits for not paying contractors. Donald Trump has a history of lying about the value of his properties on loan applications and tax filings (they’re higher for loans and lower for taxes). He has a history of lying about how many floors his buildings have. Donald Trump ran a fake charity and a fake university.

Donald Trump’s supporters admire his grift. They believe he’s a successful self-made businessman even though the facts are that his father financed him from birth and bailed out his failures multiple times.

You do not want to go into business with people who admire grifters. You don’t want to go into business or have a relationship with people who support racists. You don’t want to go into business with sexists. You don’t want to go into business with people who’ve committed sexual assault at least over 24 times (that we are aware of). You don’t want to do business with people who support a policy that separates families and throws children into cages. You don’t want to go into business with people who feud with Gold Star families and say prisoners of war are only heroes because they got captured. You don’t want to go into business with people who don’t have ethics.

If the Supreme Court allows business owners to use their religion as an excuse to refuse service to someone because they’re gay, then I should be allowed to refuse to do business with someone based on my ethics.

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Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at [email protected].