Anonymous protesters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have mordantly trolled President Donald Trump over his fight for the preservation of the Confederate legacy.
A life-sized statue appeared outside of Albuquerque City Hall on Wednesday. As the mysterious statue was erected outside of the government building, protesters told reporters, “Maybe we just need more statues of people like Epstein because that’s historical too.”
News outlets later learned the statue belonged to the Antlion Entertainment Art Collective. One of the anonymous protesters spoke with KRQE’s Annalisa Pardo about the political stunt offering an explanation for the statue.
“You know, so many statues are being taken down, but you know, people are saying that they’re bad people, so you know maybe we just need more statues of people like Epstein because that’s historical too,” the anonymous protester told Pardo on Wednesday.
A life size statue of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein popped up outside Albuquerque's City Hall overnight. The story behind who put it there and why coming up on @krqe at 4. #JeffreyEpstein pic.twitter.com/JZCbm3ovd3
— Rebecca Atkins (@RebeccaComms_) July 1, 2020
The protester added, “So we maybe need statues of people like Epstein. Maybe schools can even have statue parks with people like Hitler, and Mao and Lenin just so that we can really remember history.”
The latest statue, which Pardo describes as a “satirical political statement” comes just days after Trump verbalized his disapproval over the removal of statues as he defended the history behind them.
The president has also argued that protesters do not know the history and are unaware of what they are trying to remove. Namely, he argued the history of Ulysses Grant.
“It’s a disgrace,” Trump said. “Remember, some of this is great artwork. This is magnificent artwork, as good as there is anywhere in the world, as good as you see in France, as good as you see anywhere. It’s a disgrace.”
“Most of these people don’t even know what they’re taking down,” Trump added.
See Trump’s remarks below:
However, the Confederacy and its leaders were and still are symbols of slavery. The American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, was a battle over the ownership of slavery due to the vast differences between life in the North and South.
While Northerners had already moved on to developing industrial streams of revenue, the South still relied heavily on slavery for economic growth and financial stability.
Statues being removed in the United States are considered remnants of the Confederacy and what it stood for. Many protesters have called for statues to be removed even if the person changed their way of thinking.
