Those 20,000 supporters crammed in there are the underscoring that this Trump shit is finally over.
A big chunk of my arthead life prior to California was spent in Arizona and New Mexico. I was based there During Trump’s BS. Art residencies across both states, art show invitationals, art colonies-I had a wild time in those wild lands.
Arizona draws John Galt- level creatives all the time. Always has. ARCHITECTheads LOVE AZ. The kind of new experimentation that NOLA got caught up in during the rebuilding era is old hat to Arizona.
Freedom is in the air there. In fact, the cabin I holed up in to hunker down in research mode is there, outside of Flagstaff. Of all my journeys precovid, it was that spot that continually called me back, for me.
Arizona has had pockets of Blue forever… loyal, literal oases that you trekked through hostile territory to get safely to if you were anything other than red, white and Republican as fuck.
But during that time (2016 through 2020)… there were more active militias in Arizona than anywhere in the country. The violent, crazy assed kind. & alot of those brainwashed fucks positioned themselves along the edges of those oases professionally in positions that gave them license to fuck with any Others coming in and out of this territory. Amtrak had complaints out the Ass over racist station attendants harassing folks coming through.
They were Emboldened to be assholes.
BUT~to Arizona’s credit… a lot of white folks who just didn’t want to have the government in their shit have been rooting down in AZ for decades. It’s the only state I knew of that gave you a driver’s license that lasted till ya died, basically.
They built their “mind yo bidness” oases out there too…and they may not have been Blue (vibrationally), but they Were very “Dont bother me, & I wont bother you. Don’t start none, won’t be none. “
It’s all fiefdoms. In the wildest, road-tripping way.
& the native population there is Not to be fucked with. They’ve been boxing AZ over bullshit for ages , galvanized, organizing…
You see these Republican politicians in Arizona flipping to Harris because of those mind yo business oases that were technically voting Republican. & you also see Republicans flipping to Harris because the boon kicked off in AZ by the progressive visionaries across the arts who have been like “let’s do this shit Here” has buoyed them too. The art scenes scattered up and down AZ are fucking formidable. It’s not Just Sedona. The institutions are on their shit and understand that community blooms via expression and exposure.
It was poetic to experience, to boots on the ground hear them talk about the atmospheric changes they were witnessing in real time (as an outsider). I remember them being mystified by the micro-climate that they were watching as it stretched from the top of that road under the Grand Canyon down through Flagstaff & Sedona, saying “We’re almost getting a monsoon season! “
Poetic because, to me It felt indicative of the warming climate within the constituency of that state. I think falling in league with Trump fucked them up and they’ve been wanting to shirk this mess off for a long time.
Arizona is quietly the countercultural, anarchist capital of America in the railway sense. In the spread of experiments able to be pulled off on those grounds… & in hope committed to the bedrock of community that factors into the truest expression Of Anarchy.
Nevada is gonna be next. Watch.
On the road again…