It’s long been a tradition in American politics that new presidents experience a “honeymoon period” during their first several weeks in office — a time during which allies and supporters heap praise upon the new chief executive’s initial actions and much of the general public coalesces around the hope that change and new blood in Washington will usher in a time of progress and problem solving.
This is the spirit that former President Joe Biden spoke to during his final hours in office in which, despite his many big and bitter differences with Donald Trump, he graciously and honorably expressed the wish that the new administration would meet with success.
That said, there are also moments when the fawning and ring kissing directed at new leaders reaches absurd — even dangerous — levels. Seldom has this been more evident than in recent days in the embarrassingly obsequious statements and actions of several Republican politicians and conservative plutocrats as they competed to demonstrate their devotion to their Dear Leader.
From Elon Musk’s was-it-or-wasn’t it? salute, to the proposals advanced to place Trump’s comb-over on Mount Rushmore, or — as freshman North Carolina Congressman Addison McDowell has proposed — to rename Washington Dulles Airport in his honor, overstated gestures and rhetoric reminiscent of the kind once directed toward 20th Century authoritarian regimes have been piling up rapidly.
Take, for instance, North Carolina Congressman Richard Hudson.
Hudson, a career politician from Charlotte who has represented a gerrymandered district that runs east from his hometown for more than a decade after several years managing campaigns for an array of GOP pols, sent out an email newsletter last week that enthusiastically embraced the creepy grandiosity that’s been so prevalent in the Trump alternative reality of late.
According to the over-the-top missive, Trump’s arrival heralds the arrival of “an incredible and historic time for our great country.” And thanks to the new administration’s commitments to deporting undocumented immigrants and securing “energy dominance,” Hudson says, “the Golden Age of America has arrived.”
The “golden age” language, of course, comes from Trump’s inaugural address — a speech that veteran conservative columnist George Will described as “memorable for its staggering inappropriateness” — in which Trump declared “the golden age of America begins right now.”
Setting aside the absurdity of Trump’s (and Hudson’s) claim that the mass deportation of millions of good people who’ve become essential to the economy and ending the nation’s commitment to developing sustainable energy somehow represents great news, one has to say there is something apt and revealing — even if it was unintentional — in the language they’ve chosen.
While many presidents have adopted catchphrases as the themes for their administrations — a Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, a Great Society — these phrases have generally represented forward-looking and aspirational concepts that connoted a better life for average people.
“Golden Age” — like the Trump presidency itself — is something different. It’s a kind of rose-tinted, backward-looking phrase — one that tends to show up in history books and that often refers to periods of imperial and national might, or dominance associated with a single ruler or group of rulers.
How appropriate.
As numerous observers have also already noted, it’s not much of a leap to go from “golden age” to “gilded age” — the term commonly used to describe the last quarter of the 19th Century during which so-called robber barons dominated the U.S economy and helped usher in an era of vast and unprecedented economic inequality.
Sound familiar?
And of course, given Trump’s unabashed commitment to maximizing his own personal wealth by continuing to sell, sell, sell throughout his time in public life — right down to the unveiling of the $TRUMP cryptocurrency coin the day prior to his inauguration — “golden age” also seems an apt descriptor for the second term of the nation’s very first billionaire pitchman/president.
But if there’s a most poignant (and maybe even ironic) gold association here — especially given the millions of religious conservatives who embrace a longtime casino owner, serial adulterer and convicted felon as a figure whose words and actions should be treated as virtual gospel — it might just be to the ancient tale from the Torah, Quran and Old Testament of the golden calf.
As many people of different beliefs will recall, this was the story in which, after having been led by Moses from bondage in Egypt, the Hebrews grew restless and fashioned a cult image and false deity out of gold: “He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'” — Exodus 32:4.
While there are several versions and countless interpretations of this story, almost all agree that it was an experiment that did not end well — at least in the short term — for a lot of people. One can only hope that our present national flirtation with false idol worship ends on a better note.
NC Newsline Editor Rob Schofield oversees day-to-day newsroom operations, authors regular commentaries, and hosts a weekly radio show/podcast. Republished from ncnewsline.com.
