Sarah Beckstrom Died for Donald Trump's Vanity

Sarah Beckstrom Died for Donald Trump’s Vanity
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/sarah-beckstrom-died-for-donald-trumps

Mike Brock Nov 27, 2025


Sarah Beckstrom was twenty years old. She died serving her country—not in a war zone, not defending American lives, but because the President of the United States needed troops in Washington for a piece of political theater.

Not for national defense.

Not for constitutional purpose.

For spectacle.

She swore an oath to defend the Constitution.

Donald Trump violated it to put her there.

She should never have been deployed at all. A federal judge ruled last week that Trump’s activation of the National Guard in Washington, DC is illegal—a direct violation of federal statute. The mission had no constitutional basis, no lawful purpose, no justification except one man’s need for the optics of soldiers in the capital.

And Sarah Beckstrom died for those optics.

She’s from Summersville, West Virginia. A small town where people know each other, where when someone like Sarah signs up to serve, the whole community feels pride and worry in equal measure. Her parents sent her off believing she’d defend something worth defending. That the oath meant something. That service to country was sacred duty.

They were right about the oath. They couldn’t have known their daughter would die not defending against America’s enemies but serving as prop in one man’s performance of power.

Trump saw fit to comment on her passing. A norm preserved, I suppose. But not really. Because he’s not serious. He only loves himself.


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I withdraw my thanks on this thanksgiving. And instead give it all Sarah, because I and everyone else failed her. And yet, we will wake up tomorrow, and this travesty will continue.

— Mike Brock 🇺🇸 (@brockm.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T00:52:30.080Z

a cemetery with rows of headstones and trees
Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash