He Did Not Send His Best.
On Trump’s failed coup.
I moved to DC six months ago, escaping violence and a version of myself that allowed violent people in. A lifetime ago, I worked in DC, this is the city where I became a professional artist, fell in love and began meeting myself outside of who I had to be as a good christian woman in Fredericksburg. Living here was such a dream, one that I abandoned so it kinda feels wild to be here, my favorite has been to reconnect with friends that live here, catching up invariably includes Jan 6th, 2021.
DC residents have their own insurrection stories, sometimes the stories do not come from old friends, but rather from new neighbors, a lyft driver, my bartender. Without exception, when I hear them I am reminded of visiting family in New York and New Jersey post September 11. Everyone can tell you about the days prior, how things felt off when more and more MAGA hat wearing tourists than usual occupied their public spaces, the unsettling feeling of seeing online information about possible violence. The increased police and military presence (that never really left) and then seeing it happen, in real time, Trump giving the go ahead to a carefully laid out plan that included Capitol Hill workers, Elected Officials and racists, conspiracy theorists, trumpsters and all manners of white supremacist trash.
During his campaign trail, Trump stated that when Mexico sends its people here (a fallacy from the jump)… “they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” I would like to say to that olde loser that when he sent his unbathed insurrectionist army to DC he did not send his best people, he sent colonialist cosplayers, Heritage not Hate Losers, LARPing libertarians, the king of cultural appropriation aka some white dude that pretends to be a “shawman”, an army of rich Karens on vacation and a couple of dead guys that could have used that free Universal Healthcare Republicans (and Democrats) oppose. He sent the worst.
Trumps ascension to power radicalized me.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the moment I became totally radical. There was the libertarian phase: a friend of mine pointed out that I was constantly pouring from an empty cup and the solution might be found in the pages of the good book. I was recommended Atlas Shrugged in order to “become more selfish” so I read it, and all the other garbage Ayn Rand wrote. God what an awful book. I tried watching the movie and that did not help either, I never felt like such a poser in my life, trying to pretend in christian circles that this book was Gods gift to men. I thought libertarian here meant the same thing it meant in France, like, anarchism instead of diet Republican. In 2012 I painted a painting of the gadsden flag in the middle, the snake eating an elephant, like the scary drawing from The Little Prince. That is when I fully accepted the label of Socialist that most of my church family at that point threw at me but it wasn’t until Trump began spewing venom at the immigrant community, patronizing Black voters, making fun of the disabled or neurodivergent, literally detailing how he sexually assaults women… that I had to risk my career, my marriage and my own life and freedom to come out as Undocumented and Unafraid, to pledge to resist Trump and all he stood for was a conscious choice, one that I knew if I made, would break me, but bring the world a Revolution in turn.
There is absolutely a pipeline from christian youth to alt right spaces to full blown terrorist white nationalism — At the very least you get misguided, neo colonizers in the form of christian missionaries, or unbothered waspy suburban red voters at the worse you get whatever the fuck rained down on DC last January.
The good news, is that there is another side to the coin: a pipeline that goes from christian youth to be gay, do crime (although most of our “crime” is like, getting arrested protesting for the environment and feeding the community without a permit.)
Today, the WSJ of all places gave Jeffrey Shapiro space to voice not just a wrong opinion, but rather a dangerously reductionist white washing of the events. I don’t invite you to read it. It is nothing new that America is going to whitewash all the parts of itself it does not like. Prayers and candle light vigils today are not going to fix the white supremacist problem. They did nothing before Trump and they did not do anything while he was in office.
What we all witnessed last year was a failed coup, and a fair warning.
As we go on from year One of Bidens term, being painfully aware that things have not changed, understand that the same people that faced no consquences for their terrorist actions last year will continue to vote, to harbor ill will, to hoard weapons, to work at jobs that make marginalized peoples lives impossible… business as usual. If you were not radicalized when Trump opened that asshole he calls his mouth to come for marginalized minorities, if you were not radicalized through years of an outright fascist imperialist regime, I beg that a failed coup on the Nations Capital does, please do not see the failed insurrection as “the end” an anomaly in our democratic process, as an ignorant redneck punchline, as something that wont ever happen again and instead, get organized now.
Reverend Leonina Arismendi Zarkovic is part of the Prophetic Council for the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and Co-Leader at Iglesia del Pueblo. They are an award winning writer and artist from Uruguay living in the US.
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