Indie rock musician Ariel Pink admitted to attending the pro-Trump protest on Capitol Hill, surprising music fans, who have spread across social media to condemn the singer.
In a tweet, Pink stated that she was not part of the crowd that was attacking the Capitol, but was there to “show peacefully [his] support to the president “.
Filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer posted a photo of Pink and singer John Maus together in Washington, DC. Responding to criticism from fans on Twitter, Pink wrote: “I was in DC to peacefully show my support for the President” and “I attended the rally on the lawn of the White House and went back to the hotel and took a nap. Case closed.”
Pink, who tweeted about supporting Trump in the past, also defended her participation in a pandemic protest. “Everyone at these events deserves what is happening to them,” he wrote. “They took the risk knowing very well what could happen. Weren’t the BLM protests over the past 6 months informed about the pandemic?”
It is still unclear what Maus was doing at the event, although he shared an enigmatic Link to the Vatican website that seems to criticize Trump’s idolatry. He also shared an image of Edith Stein, who was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a barefoot Carmelite nun.
The presence of Pink and Maus at yesterday’s protest caused several fans to struggle against the personality archetype of typical indie rock, which usually attracts more liberal artists and fans.
Earlier this month, Pink posted a series of tweets arguing that the presidential election was stolen from Trump.
This is not the first time Pink has piqued fan criticism for making problematic statements. In 2014, the singer told a story about being “attacked by a feminist”, calling it a “hate crime”.
“You know, women’s freedom, all that sort of thing, she earns her own money, she can f ** king pay for her own lunch,” he said in a video interview, describing the result of a night spent with a girl after a party. “But: I suggested, I never offered to pay for lunch.”
“This is my psychological assessment,” he continued. “She wanted to criticize me in public because she said, ‘I have a good one. I have a great aspirant for Kurt Cobain and he respects women and I can embarrass him in public. This is exactly the guy I want.'”
In 2017, Pink appeared to offer a sympathetic view of Trump in an interview with Stereogum. “Donald Trump symbolizes to me how everyone is wrong and people don’t appreciate how wrong they are,” he said. “They don’t take the opportunity to look at themselves and say, what’s wrong? They’re just, this isn’t America and it’s not me! No, it’s you. It’s you, you live here, you are America , you’re the one, you’re Donald Trump, whether you want to believe it or not. You didn’t face it. “