Meanwhile in North Korea…
You can't make this stuff up.
I saw some visuals related to this in passing on social media yesterday and thought it might be AI.
Nope!
Via The Independent: Pastor leads wild dedication ceremony for Trump’s giant gold statue at his own golf course.
A towering gold statue of Donald Trump was unveiled at the president’s golf course in Doral, Florida, during an emotionally charged ceremony presided over by an Evangelical pastor.
Placed on a pedestal in a clearing of palm trees, the 22‑foot colossus depicts the president thrusting his fist into the air, echoing his defiant gesture after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.
[…]
“Today at Trump National Doral Miami, we witnessed an unforgettable moment,” Burns wrote on social media before emphasizing that the gilded effigy was not a false idol.
“Let me be clear: this is not a golden calf,” he said. “This statue is a celebration of life. It is a symbol of resilience, freedom, patriotism, strength, and the will power to keep fighting for the future of America.”
This is the kind of thing that, if it were in a movie making fun of Trump, it would seem ham-fisted and over the top. It is almost too cliched to be real.
And yet, here we are.
From Burns’ X account:
They continue to leave no room for doubt that Trump is a gross egotist who wants to be viewed as the Great Leader (and in the gauchest way possible, it would seem).
How anyone can look at this and not see how authoritarian-coded it is is beyond me.
May the felon’s statue suffer the same fate as those of Lenin, Stalin and Saddam.
It’s authoritarian, but it is also idol worship. Jesus Christ, do these people never listen to their own sermons or read the Bible they love to wave around? Did they forget the whole golden calf story? Did they not read far enough into the Ten Commandments to reach number two?
From the Gospel of Reznor: Bow down before the one you serve, you’re going to get what you deserve.
Where is Savonarola when you need him?
Oh, Trump’s supporters absolutely see it. But they don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s what they want. They are authoritarians who want an authoritarian President.
@Michael Reynolds:
Technicality. It’s not a golden calf, but a golden ass.
@Mikey: I think some do. I honestly don’t think everyone who voted for him, or who will vote Republican in November, does, however.
And I also think that the ability of many GOP voters to ignore this or rationalize it away will continue.
I only hope that a few percentage points here and there either open their eyes, or at least saty home this election cycle.
In a parking lot near me ospreys have built a nest on a light pole. The surrounding parking spaces are pretty well covered in Osprey poop. But ospreys need a big platform, it’s really too much to hope that ospreys could nest on that upraised tiny hand.
I did enjoy that in your picture there’s a gap in the palm frond behind his hand that looks like a raised finger. That would be an accurate depiction of trump’s attitude to his voters and the country.
@Michael Reynolds:
See, Pastor Burns is a step ahead of you. They do remember the whole golden calf story, they did read the Second Commandment. They just have the sacred right to assert these ideas aren’t applicable when it’s inconvenient.
Like all fundamentalists, they will pick and choose which sacred texts matter and which don’t. That’s how you get evangelicals who don’t give a shit about The Beatitudes, yet find a couple of verses of Leviticus indisputable enough to demand dominion over everyone.
Nothing deserves veneration quite like surviving, by no actions of your own, some crazy person trying to kill you. This is how we know we live in the dumbest possible timeline.
@Mikey:
@Steven L. Taylor:
Gack! It burns!!!
From an actual interview…, h/t to Jeff Tiedrich substack
That would be the hand he uses when he grabs ’em by the pussy!
I’m sure they would be totally understanding and fine if Obama had done something similar, yes?
@Scott F.:
Eleventh Commandment: Unless there’s profit in it.
I met a traveller from a flooded land,
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of gold
Stand in the ocean . . . Near them, on the floor,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
@Steven L. Taylor:
“I’m sure President Trump didn’t ask for the statue. Really I bet he’d prefer it wasn’t there. But he’s so loyal to his supporters he hates to disappoint them about little tokens like this.”
WTF?
WTFF?
You know, us Brits have a king.
And even most diehard monarchists would not dream of doing something like this.
Not least because King Charles would be likely to turn up and (politely) smack them on the head and tell them to stop being so damn silly.
“It’s not a golden calf…” Yes, it is. It’s totally a golden calf. I do not think you will have a pleasant time of it when you realize that. But maybe you never will, just because it would be so devastating if you did.
The thing I’d like y’all to realize is that this is not something alien. This is a kind of situation that any human being can get themselves into. Religion really has nothing to do with it. This is Nixon’s “I am not a crook”. This is Einstein’s “God does not play dice with the universe”. We see humans getting to this place, where they deny all kinds of evidence in their face, everywhere we look. I only avoid it, and then only mostly, because I know about it and work against it.
I still get caught sometimes, though. I practice saying, “I was wrong”. It isn’t pleasant at all, but it liberates me. It gets a bit easier with practice. In some ways, “I was wrong” is harder than “I’m sorry”.
However, this whole dynamic is less about holding some religious belief and more about being a human being. Here’s a book about it.