CPAC’s Golden Trump Statue Highlights GOP’s Literal Idolization Of Ex-POTUS

(Screencap: William Turton/Twitter)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Oh come on, this is just too on the nose.

Despite having unleashed a mob of his bloodthirsty supporters upon the Capitol in his desperate pursuit to steal the election last month, ex-President Donald Trump is being fêted at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) almost as a god-king – a characterization that may have once been seen as an exaggeration of conservatives’ loyalty to Trump until this happened:

That’s right: You’re witnessing an actual golden statue of the former president being paraded around CPAC’s convention halls.

Perhaps the idol shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise; the CPAC theme this year is “America Uncanceled,” and its panel lineup shows how the convention, which began on Thursday, is largely serving as grievance-fest for Trump and his foot soldiers, with little focus on an actual policy agenda.

“The idea that we’re going to come up with some kind of conservative platform at CPAC, it rings a little hollow,” American Conservative Union chair and CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp told the Washington Post. Instead, the convention runners aim to “cover the facts” about the 2020 election that Schlapp claims the media had “canceled.”

In essence, the event promises to boost Trump’s lies about the election being “rigged” against him through voter fraud (it wasn’t). The former president will give a closing speech at the convention, and the golden statue will stand proud.

Once the video of the statue went viral, comparisons to the biblical fable of the golden calf that drew God’s wrath at the Israelites were inevitable:

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. “The idea that we’re going to come up with some kind of conservative platform at CPAC, it rings a little hollow,”

    Well it looks like CPAC doesn’t want to step on the RNC’s platform-“Trump, Trump 24/7/365, ain’t nothing better than that”.

  2. Avatar for dv01 dv01 says:

    When people start blathering about how important having two parties is, point them at that picture and just say “Nope.”

  3. The bible had a golden calf. This is a golden ass.

  4. Sooo, why does one think of a Golden Ass?

  5. Transgressive pwning of the libs is all they’ve got.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

415 more replies

Participants

Avatar for baronsieggy Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for cervantes Avatar for sandyh Avatar for sniffit Avatar for danny Avatar for 26degreesrising Avatar for lastroth Avatar for karlsgems Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for tena Avatar for dommyluc Avatar for 21zna9 Avatar for Anarchy_Bunker Avatar for tiowally Avatar for seamus42 Avatar for skeptical Avatar for occamscoin Avatar for txlawyer Avatar for zenicetus Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for mrbill30560 Avatar for hardyweinberg Avatar for LeeHarveyGriswold

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: