The human behind the popular photography blog Humans of New York published a rare text-only Facebook post Tuesday afternoon urging his fans to cast their votes against Donald J. Trump.
While neither naming Hillary Clinton nor Trump in his post, Stanton was clear about whom he was endorsing.
“This election is not about emails,” he wrote. “This election is about preventing a dangerous demagogue from becoming the most powerful man in the world. And there are enough of us who realize this.”
As Stanton expected, he received mixed comments on the post. “Thank you for making what is definitely an unpopular post and doing what is right,” commented Cally Decherd.
Eduardo Wheelock commented, “So apparently national security and corruption is not a big deal. If it wasn’t for the good stories on this page, I’d unfollow.”
Tuesday’s post isn’t the first time Stanton has spoken out about the election to his more than 17.9 million Facebook followers. In March, he wrote “An Open Letter to Donald Trump,” in which he noted his desire not to get political online, but said “opposing [Trump] is no longer a political [decision]. It is a moral one.” That post has over 2.3 million likes and over 1.1 million shares.
Stanton photographed Hillary Clinton in early September in a two-part series. The photos showed a more vulnerable side of Clinton. She discussed her nerves as one of the only women in her class at Harvard Law School and how the public expects her to be more calm and reserved than her male counterparts.
Stanton has posted several HONY series surrounding political topics, but rarely actually discusses politics. He’s covered the topics of post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans, pediatric cancer, prison inmates, and Syrian refugees both living in America and making their way across Europe.
Stanton created the Humans of New York page in November 2010 when he started posting candid photos of New Yorkers. He began captioning the photos with quotes and stories from the people he photographed, and his following has grown exponentially. Stanton gained notoriety for interviewing President Obama, traveling to Europe to tell the stories of refugees, his two published books, and countless philanthropic projects.
