He Is Risen!

In his second inaugural, Donald Trump celebrated his political resurrection and said it was America's, too. I watched so you didn't have to.

Veronese, 1570.

Donald Trump is not a subtle person. The Trump meme coin that he began selling the weekend before his swearing-in as 47th president was marketed with a photo of him. raising a fist after July’s assassination attempt. He is Risen! Resurrection is a theme of Trump’s second inaugural speech too. Trump said he’s ushering in a golden age, which evokes the resurrection of Periclean Athens. But he’s really resurrecting the Gilded Age (1870-1890), the most corrupt period in American political history. (Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower are lousy with gilt.) Trump’s own political resurrection after his felony conviction is actually, he argued, America’s. This ridiculous and borderline blasphemous conceit is the subject of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.