Donald Trump didn’t change. Your “News” did.

Any New Yorker on the street can tell you that Donald Trump has always been this way – he hasn’t made a “secret” of it. We just called this stuff “tabloid news”, and tabloids were an exception. Now they nearly rule all public discourse.

Lowest-common-denominator “News” has produced a lowest-common-denominator candidate. He almost clinched the highest elected office. There is a trail of polarized destruction in the wake.

For over a year this profit-driven entertainment media actually created a cancerous candidate who gives them daily “clickable content” while they hold their noses and count the dollars. These people aren’t serving you, or democracy. We are all collectively debased – men and women, black and white, Mexican and Muslim, rich and poor, families, children, teachers, workers, nurses, doctors, cashiers, church people, atheists – as a result.

The GOP’s flirtation with starting and fanning racist bonfires over the past decade or so has finally swallowed it in flames, leaving it in smoking embers, their leaders completely covered with fecal matter, quieted and stunned. The reputation of the US around the world took a battering thanks to this tabloid news candidate as well. Traveling to Street Art events outside the US this year, invariably someone would shake us by the lapels and ask us what the hell was going on with this Trump guy?!.

In recognition of the woman-hating man who came dangerously close to the White House, here are a number of different women and girls by Street Artists creating in the public sphere at the moment, covering a range of styles, backgrounds, techniques and points of view.

So, here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Beast, Danielle Mastrion, Faile, finDAC, Jilly Ballistic, Kevin Lyons, Leticia Mondragora, LMNOPI, Marina Capdevila, Myth, Never Crew, Ouch, Shepard Fairey, Sipros, Slick, Spaik, Stray Ones, Taker, Who’s Dirk, and Zimer.

Our top image: FinDac (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey. Detail. For The L.I.S.A. Project in The East Village. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey. The L.I.S.A. Project in The East Village. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimer (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Danielle Mastrion and Lexi Bella collaboration. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Beast (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LMNOPI (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Leticia Mandragora (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marina Capdevilla in Switzerland for Vision Art Festival. (photo © Marina Capdevila)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stray Ones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stray Ones. Catch him if you can! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ouch (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Taker for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Never Crew in Luzern, Switzerland for Viva Con Agua. (photo © Never Crew)

Sipros for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jilly Ballistic. Palimpsest in the NYC Subway. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. Sexual predator for USA President. How can you people defend him still? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Unknown. She is not perfect. She is also not crazy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Whos Dirk (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Slick. Murals In The Market/1XRun 2016. Detroit, Michigan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kevin Lyons. Murals In The Market/1XRun 2016. Detroit, Michigan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spaik. Sardegna in Italy. (photo © Spaik)

Untitled. Subway dreams. NYC Subway. Manhattan, NYC. October 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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