Charlestown's leading Trumper strikes a nerve
 |
| Some people know exactly why this mural was funded. (April 10, 2026) |
By now, the Great Providence Mural Kerfuffle is mostly over.
The in-progress mural
of Iryna Zarutska on a downtown building has been permanently
discontinued. The owners of The Dark Lady, the LGBTQIA-friendly bar
that greenlit the project, have said they are
“deeply and sincerely sorry.” A smaller mural of Zarutska has been completed
on the wall of Opa, a Lebanese restaurant on Atwells Ave. And some
excellent reporting on the affair has been published by the Boston
Art Review and The Providence Eye (where
I’m a board member), among other outlets.
But there are still aftershocks reverberating in the local
media. And one of them is worth mentioning.
 |
| Mageau (left) is Charlestown's most prominent Trumper |
But it also included a significant error of fact. In the
last lines of his letter, Mageau wrote:
I believe the controversy rests primarily among the left-wing socialist, communist and progressive community. They are having nervous fits over it because Elon Musk is helping to underwrite the costs of painting murals of victims attacked by undocumented immigrants. [Emphasis added]
This is not true.
EDITOR'S NOTE: That Jim Mageau twists the truth beyond recognition is no surprise to Charlestown residents who have been subjected to Mageau's bullshit for decades. We've cited Mageau's confabulations for much of that time, even giving him his own "Topics" tab (click HERE) that links to almost 200 Progressive Charlestown articles. - Will Collette
Zarutska’s killer was born and raised in Charlotte, as this fact-check from the Charlotte Observer notes.
Mageau didn’t cite the source of his misinformation. But
it’s possible he heard it from our president, who, during his 2026 State of the
Union address, falsely
stated that Zarutska’s killer “Came in through open borders.”
When it comes to the Journal, I attribute this
flub more to understaffing than malice. The paper, which is owned by the
mega-conglomerate USA Today Co. (formerly
known as Gannett), has been run on a bare-bones staff for a while
now.
But, whatever the cause, printing such a claim without an
editor’s note is an egregious error.
In 2026, with the Trump administration enacting
anti-immigrant policies at what Human Rights Watch has
called a “dizzying pace,” I don’t need to spend much time
explaining why xenophobia should be challenged, not spread.
And amidst a broader anti-immigrant
backlash built on lies, the claim that immigrants are violent is
particularly pernicious. For anyone in need of a refresher, I recommend this
2024 blog post from the American Immigration Council: “Immigrants
Do Not Commit More Crimes in the US, Despite Fearmongering.”
Among that post’s points: “immigrants—including undocumented
immigrants—have lower rates of felony arrests than U.S.-born individuals,”
“growing immigrant populations have been associated with reductions in violent and property crime across
the U.S.,” and “Sanctuary cities in the U.S. do not experience higher crime
rates than non-sanctuary cities.” A section called “The Bottom Line” reads:
“Policies that protect immigrants do not result in higher crime rates but
instead contribute to safer, more trusting communities for all residents.”
There are good arguments for why opinion pages shouldn’t
publish false claims of any kind. I’m a fan of this
2013 essay about climate deniers from an L.A. Times Letters
editor, Paul Thornton, who wrote, “Simply put, I do my best to keep
errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is
published.”
But at the very least, the Journal should
add a note to Mageau’s letter. And, however understaffed the paper is, it
should take care, in these hate-filled times of ours, not to spread
misinformation that harms some of our most vulnerable neighbors.
Philip Eil is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Providence. He is the former news editor of the The Providence Phoenix. His debut book, Prescription for Pain: How a Once-Promising Doctor Became the "Pill Mill Killer," was released in 2024.
SteveAhlquist.news is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
