We all know the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is a den of sin and corruption. But blasphemy?
Standing at the corner of Main Street and Harley-Davidson Boulevard, I get a good-natured taste of just that. After spying my CNN T-shirt, Carson Davis, a self-proclaimed Fox News fan from Texas, begins heckling. “You are fake news!” he yells with a grin. “Just ask our lord and savior Donald Trump!” [Bill Weir, “Bikers Salute Leader of Their Pack,” CNN, 2018.08.06].
I don’t argue the hypothetical much, but can you imagine the pious screaming that would ensue if we liberals called Barack Obama our “lord and savior”?
Blech. I like Barack Obama, and I’m happy to defend him as the greatest President, practically and morally, of my lifetime, but I certainly will not tolerate any deification of any occupant of the White House. That’s dangerous, cultish, and un-American.
Heck, calling Trump lord and savior isn’t even Christian. I’m not a churchgoer, but doesn’t that Bible have a line about having no other gods besides the One? The Trinity’s a complicated concept, but I’m pretty sure Trump isn’t part of it.
But such is the theology one gets from old white people with too much disposable income pretending to be tough cookies in Sturgis.
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has become a strange parody of its former self.
In a related note Jon McNaughton, the guy who painted Obama burning the Constitution, has a new painting. This one has Trump looking like Washington crossing the Delaware. The comic book nerd in me keeps hoping Swamp Thing comes out of the water and upends the boat.
What is amusing is that the fleecers are out of state owners of main street property for this rally. Locals sold that property for peanuts, which makes me wonder, how the property tax is set up in Sturgis. Must be pretty good as these businesses are only open for a month or so a year.
The sound the foreign built motorcycles (that means you Harley Davidson) make sounds like, the dollar the dollar the dollar. Used to be potato potato potato. They ride those old white guy bikes while sipping foreign owned Budweiser. Freedom and all of that hooey, while we are being taken over by whomever wants to take us over. One of the few things manufactured in America is racist hate, we have that developed well here.
Some of those old white guys are veterans, bet they don’t know who runs the Department of Veterans Affairs. We do now:
https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-perlmutter-bruce-moskowitz-marc-sherman-shadow-rulers-of-the-va
The Shadow Rulers of the VA
How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.
A deification on trump upon knowing this or a defecation on trump upon knowing this, for me, the latter.
Cory rolls the ball. . .
“He’s got the whole world in his hands” … or not. It’s tough to do with those tiny little hands.
Nothing new about Presidents being deified in art. Washington and Lincoln are just two pre-20th century examples, and I’m sure there are others. I remember visiting my aunt’s house as a child and seeing a painting of a deified John F. Kennedy hanging on a wall of their rec room. My aunt explained that her mother-in-law was an amateur artist, a devout Catholic who adored JFK, and who painted many similar portraits of the slain President.
When I say this, I’m not comparing President Trump to any earlier President. I’m just saying it’s far from unique.
Gawd Drumpf will be very busy soon forgiving crooks in his own party that he endorsed like- https://www.vox.com/2018/8/8/17663938/collins-arrested
Arrested just this morning for insider trading. He bragged about making his friends millionaires. Collins is a wingnut congresscrook from New York. One less accoutrement for the Swamp who has everything.
Rumour has it Disney is prepared to file a peremptory trademark infringement against Drumpf’s tiny hands if he claims to be holding a “small world” in them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9YqCP_B7EU
Nobody likes Drumpf!
Michael’s note suggests this deification of Presidents is an ongoing illness in America. How many other nations suffer from this bad theology? North Korea comes to mind.
And Michael, I’m curious: how often does such deification take place while the President in question is still alive… or still in office?
Cory,
Is your problem with this issue is that they didn’t sell Obama shirts at Sturgis in previous years?
Obviously not, Jason. Reread my original post: “Blech. I like Barack Obama, and I’m happy to defend him as the greatest President, practically and morally, of my lifetime, but I certainly will not tolerate any deification of any occupant of the White House. That’s dangerous, cultish, and un-American.“
Cory,
If you do a google search you can still buy Obama shirts. I assume they were also selling them during his reign. I assume because I never googled it until tonight.
My bet: They never sold a single Obama shirt at Sturgis but they sold a whole hell of a lot of Obama urinal pads.
Cory:
My belief is that the process often begins in earnest as early as during their first Presidential campaign as the candidate is elevated to a personal status compatible with the high office and its tangible larger-than-life manifestations (e.g., neoclassical architecture).
The bigger the government, the bigger the man or woman must be to run the government and symbolize/be the emblematic representation of it (the US President has the rare dual status as head of government and head of state).
Arguably, two factors influence the intensity of deification significantly – assassination and great political disputes. Assassination is easily understood – grief often magnifies perception of a person’s good works and it’s generally considered bad form to speak ill of the dead. Great political disputes fuel extremism on both sides of an argument, with each side portraying the other as evil and their own cause as morally just to the point of being ordained by God or whatever “greater than self” power one ascribes to (e.g., science, popular will, reason, etc.).
‘Bikers for Trump’ founder says he sells Trump shirts made in Haiti because American-made products are too expensive.
Right up Drumpf’s alley. Isn’t Drumpf and his followers exploiting slave labor?
I told one guy nice hat (make American great again) and asked if I could c it he proudly took it off and showed me. I asked about the made in Japan tag on his nice hat. He said dtrumps fixing those tags with the tariffs.
I could only stare in disbelief. Sturgis was that stupid in the drump department.
I meant made in China not japan my typo