(FROM THE VAULT) Wherein I Did A People's Cancellation Of A Mid-Ass President!!!!!

"I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father." - Leon Czolgosz

I do not condone the assassination of the President, because I think his Big Mac, steak, and napalm cola diet is going to be more efficient in doing him in. However, I do have a favorite Presidential assassin, and if you care about working class and poor people, you should too.

Hi, again, it's Snookie, your favorite queer girl who used to do 594s with her 94s (and Poscas, I get no Oscas). In 2023 and 2025, I did a number on the William McKinley statue in Golden Gate Park, often writing "Czolgosz Lives", in reference to Leon Czolgosz, the guy who iced McKinley back in 1901.

Now, William McKinley was considered, even by dorky ass milquetoast centrist historians as a fairly mid-ass President who kissed the ass of banks and was a real imperialist loser. Yet, somehow, even though McKinley the Ted McGinley of the Gilded Age has tenuous at best ties to San Francisco, they rewarded him posthumously with a giant eyesore statue at the eastern end of the Panhandle/Golden Gate Park, which is not lit up, not blocked off, and thus, an easy target for those who want to do a people's cancellation.

(Pro-Tip: Bring a high pressure can of black spraypaint to cross out his name, which is high up on the statue, and a 94 of any contrasting color to write subversive messages)

But let's talk about Leon Czolgosz for a second. While other presidential assassins were not great people (John Wilkes Booth was a confederate sympathizer, Charles Guiteau was a normie who became delulu after President Lasagna Cat didn't give him a cushy government job, and Lee Harvey Oswald was a tankie and let's not get into the conspiracy theories). Leon Czolgosz was an everyman, a worker, an anarchist who was the child of Polish immigrants (who faced hella discrimination), his mom died when he was young, and he had to go to work as a teenager, only to get spanked by Grover Cleveland's Panic of 1893 during his last non-consecutive term.

It was there he became an anarchist, while he tried to join anarchist collectives and find community, he found himself shunned and not trusted for reasons lost to history (I personally think he was on the autism spectrum, and that sometimes, these spaces have been and can be exclusionary for neurodivergent people, especially those who were not brought up to speed on organizing culture).

However, he was cordial with Emma Goldman, and she would later defend him posthumously. We may never know why Czolgosz lacked community, but he was a working class person who may have been rough around the edges and may not have fit in with certain cultural norms in anarchist spaces, but he was still someone who was crushed by capitalism, and we must stand up for those crushed by capitalism, even when they contain multitudes.

And indeed, Czolgosz may very well have decided in September of 1901 that if he doesn't fit in, he had nothing to lose by doing something big. So, he shot McKinley, was put on a quick show trial, convicted, and sentenced to die. He was executed at only 28 years old, meaning that everyone right now who is the age he lived to is an elder Gen Z. To add insult to injury, his body was disintegrated in sulfuric acid, his possessions burned, and he was buried in an unmarked grave by prison officials.

Emma Goldman would say of Czolgosz “As an anarchist, I am opposed to violence....but if the people want to do away with assassins, they must do away with the conditions which produce murderers.” I would have to agree with my girl here, and I have to say the conditions of exploitation of working class, poor people, the environment, etc. are just as bad as they were in that time.

To this end, it is time to give our dead homie a glow up. And that's why I, and other brave anonymous souls have redecorated that statue and encourage others to cancel McKinley with spraypaint and markers.

A few tips:

1) It gets really dark at night around the McKinley statue. However, reconnaisance and situational awareness is important, as you will have to climb up and down steps, and it could hamper you if ops and cops make you have to do a runner.
2) I am a major endorser of using 94 spraycans (though it might be good to wrap them in black duct-tape because the side of the can is white and it could be a security risk) for radical messaging, as it is a lower pressure can that is easy to use and versatile. However, a high pressure can is good for crossing out McKinley's name, which can be hard to reach from the podium.
3) Good messages to paint with your 94 include "Czolgosz Lives", "Emma Goldman", an anarchy symbol, HWDP (Polish ACAB because Czolgosz was Polish), and Deny Defend Depose/Free Luigi (for another comrade who is being crushed by the system).
4) Try to find places in the city names after McKinley, and do a people's renaming as well.

If we can memory hole Cesar Chavez for being a sex pest, we should certainly memory hole Presidents who shit on the working class. Yes, you could do activism the "right" way by sitting through stodgy ass government meetings and giving your few minutes of officially sanctioned speech, only to be ignored by decision makers and various stiffs, or you can take direct action and overwhelm city resources so it's cheaper to just take down the tributes. But this must be a collective action.

And maybe, just maybe, we can get a female sculptor to put up a generic warrior woman statue where McKinley is. My lesbian self would YEEEE!!!!! and SQUEEEE!!!! at that

You know you love me,

-Snookie