Trump 2.0: The Gilded Rage
The defining feature of the second Trump administration so far has been the Retribution Comeback Tour, with Trump venting his rage on any and all who have ever opposed him, from prosecutors to pundits and politicians, many in his own Party. But providing the backbeat has been an increasingly obvious obsession with gold and gilding. As a metaphor for wealth generally, one of very few things Trump truly seems to care about, gold is certainly apt, but there’s a limit, and Trump doesn’t seem to have found it. From tacky scrollwork embellishments and knickknacks in the Oval Office, to a golden Marie Antoinette-style White House Ballroom, a proposed gold-accented massive Triumphal Arch near Arlington National Cemetery, regilding the equine statues by the Lincoln Memorial, even a larger-than-life gold statue of himself at his Doral golf club, Trump is cranking out more gold than Midas himself would know what to do with.
