So I can see why someone might freak out over Hitler memorabilia. But everyone understands that his likenesses of Che Guevara, Hermann Göring, and Ceaușescu are not there for veneration (how could one venerate them all?) and that Crow is not America’s last surviving Hoxhaist. The accusation that he is a Nazi is similarly unwarranted.

Last year, a close friend of Crow’s described his politics to me as “Romney Republicanism,” in contrast to the puerile madness that has seized the modern GOP. Crow supported Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the House January 6 investigation, who lost her seat over her unwillingness to exculpate Donald Trump. It simply isn’t possible to be a Nazi, crypto or otherwise, and simultaneously be an Abe Lincoln and Liz Cheney fanboy—let alone to conceal from your dearest confidants, among them Black and Jewish people, your preference for the master race. …

Crow’s politics are not mine. But in the matter of his pastimes, he is blameless. Billionaires have their hobbies, and to me, his are among the more relatable. If I had a burdensome amount of inherited wealth, I would absolutely unburden myself of some of it by collecting cool stuff—books and historical curios, fine art, a performance space where I could host friends and strangers for concerts and lectures. I would buy one of those gold dinars, the official currency minted by the Islamic State, and I would show it off to my intimates. Some strangers might suppose that because I own such repugnant items, I must have secretly pledged my soul to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But my friends would know otherwise, because they are not morons. That is why they are my friends.