Golden Trump idol paraded through CPAC as maskless devotees gawk and chant

Anybody else getting a Twiki vibe?

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If prison isn’t an option, I’d accept the beach. Preferably on a deserted island somewhere.

The whole thing makes met wonder if someday when his favor with religious flips over, how many apocalyptic symbols and metaphors they will pull out of that. "A wand with a star! Three stars on his right leg! It’s just as foretold! "

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There really isn’t any difference between expressions mocking trump and expressions lauding Trump. Not any more. The statement, “He cheated on his wives, cheated on his taxes and then put a bunch of children in cages” will get a round of cheers form his supporters. And saying, “He tried to stage a coup on January 6,” will get you, “Damn right he did!” from both sides, with very different connotations.

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Because this is too delicious not to share - guess where the statue was made?

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I missed the wand entirely. That’s… weird, whatever the intent here. But the whole CPAC thing is so fucking nuts, I’m leaning towards “not parody.” (E.g. @GagHalfrunt 's link about the Nazi/white supremacist favored rune being used for the CPAC stage. There’s no way that’s not deliberate.)

Looking at the artist’s website doesn’t entirely clear it up- his work mostly seems like a bunch of bland, apolitical, corporate pop-culture imagery commodified, like an especially safe, toothless version of Jeff Koons. But it seems like his Trump imagery is getting used at rallies, so it’s not exactly a “prank” as the audience for it is pro-Trump.

Trumpism is like this hyper-inflated version of Poe’s law. Poe’s law to the Nth power… while also being aware of Poe’s law and weaponizing it. (“Did my statements cross a line? Well, they were ‘a joke’!”)

It’s actually downright uncanny, even without grabbing random symbolism - I mean, if you were to create a fictional character as the Antichrist, you couldn’t do better than Trump, as @vernonbird 's link above details.

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Long before Trump became president, I read an online parody of/response to Left Behind, in which the Antichrist comes to Earth as an American politician and becomes President with the support of Christian conservatives, who stay fanatically loyal even as he fulfils all the prophecies of the Antichrist. I can’t remember what it was called or who wrote it, but I hope that someone here will know it.

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wow. i didn’t even catch your post till it was mentioned again below.

a link to the rune they’re referencing – with the exception of the bar that is the screen that’s definitely the shape. including the just very slightly not quite as long serif wings.

that’s a vanishingly small chance of coincidence ( it’s hard to see what it looked like in former years. mostly looks like a more traditional round or square stage depending on the year. )

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Somehow, I doubt Jeb will be the burning Bush…

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That’s an unconventional way to spell “bromine gas.”

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If it is, his wish for my applause might finally be granted.

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Almost certainly it would have been Fred Clark at Slacktivist, or else he would have covered it in one of his threads.

Seems using the keyword “leftbehind” does not organize by date, but perhaps you are better at searching/organizing.

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buffy-giles-inappropriate-laugh

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That the stage is such an awkward shape argues against coincidence, too. That’s not a stage configuration that someone is going to randomly set up that way. The Trump campaign and allies were sticking all sorts of Nazi Easter eggs in his campaign materials, and they’ve moved on to being more and more overt, so this really isn’t a surprise.

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I’ve been saying Trump is the Antichrist for a few years now. Glad the golden idol is finally making it more obvious! :crazy_face:

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It’s dangerous too. Those voids are a magnet for someone walking off the main stage directly towards the exits. I assume that CPAC hires pros who’d know that.

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I have a very difficult time believing that the neo-Nazi “Nordic rune” symbol blatantly forming the awkward shape of the stage was any accident. It wasn’t.

The Republican Party is absolutely full of (and wholly controlled by) legitimate neo-Nazis who are now clearly comfortable starting to be more public about what is at the center of the ideology. Really is the only “ideology” at this point – I mean, they’ve literally shredded the party platform.

I think the question we need to start asking ourselves is what the heck to really do about it. I think number one, we need to hold Democrats to account to speak more openly about this sad state of affairs, and call it what it is – white power fascism. The same goes for the media. They should be digging into this shit, and they too need to start calling out the GOP for what it is – white power fascism. I know I’ll be making more efforts to let these power centers know I expect them to face this head-on. We know what sticking our collective heads in the sand will bring us.

As some here may remember, I was quite disappointed for a while, when the mainstream media kept referring to QAnon as a “conspiracy theory.” Post-Jan. 6th, I have seen significantly greater use of the term “cult” to refer to QAnon and its followers, as I have been encouraging. Perhaps this means in a few more months, CNN will be referring to (what now passes for) the GOP as a far-right white power neo-Nazi fascist movement, which it obviously is. I hate to think what “new reality” will have brought on that reckoning.

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In November 2016, the leadership of the National Socialist Movement announced their intention to replace the Nazi-pattern swastika with the Odal rune on their uniforms and party regalia in an attempt to enter mainstream politics.[9][10]

Hmm.

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Right?

For those who ever asked of themselves, “What would I do, if I had lived in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party and realized what was going on,” I’d submit that it looks like we may, sadly, have the chance to find out.

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It could be a Nazi sympathizer working their pernicious ideology into non-nazi society. It could be an assortment of elements arranged by someone who doesn’t consult the “hate symbols” database.