Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“It’s fair to see the [Iryna] Zarutska mural campaign as a response to the veneration of [George] Floyd, and the effort — joined by the Democratic Party, progressive infrastructure, and much of corporate America — to change the country in his honor. Political movements have always elevated martyrs, and Trump has spent a decade raising the profiles of victims of violent crime and their family members. … The backlash against the Zarutska mural campaign isn’t purely about partisanship. In Chicago, one of the only places where art honoring her has gone up around a sizable Ukrainian-American community, it has not changed hearts or minds. It’s been received as the unwelcome manipulation of a tragedy by people who don’t care much about Ukraine.” (04/01/26)