Pastor Mark Burns, the president’s informal “spiritual advisor,” wants to make one thing very clear about the extremely tall gold statue of Donald Trump that was officially dedicated last week in Doral, Miami. “Let me be clear: this is not a golden calf. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone,” he wrote on Twitter.
He’s technically right, just as Rene Magritte was technically right that his painting of a pipe was not actually a pipe. In the most literal sense, the statue of Trump, which is named “Don Colossus” is not a golden calf.
Despite the president calling it “The Real Deal - GOLD,” on Truth Social, the statue is not made of gold. Unlike the golden calf, which was made from melting the jewelry of the Egyptians, the Trump statue is not actually made of solid gold. “Don Colossus” is cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf, making it much, much less valuable. It is also obviously not a calf, as calves are baby cows, and the statue is certainly not a baby cow.
Why use gold leaf instead of electroplating it? Isn’t gold leaf more liable to fall off when exposed to the elements?
As per usual with all the shit the conservatives do, it is cheaper. Electroplating requires a gigantic bath or a massive hermetically sealed room that can fit the entire volume of the statue. Such a thing either doesn’t exist, would be irrational to pay to build or, if it exists, it is really expensive as a service to use it (repurposing a PCB plant, maybe?) Modern public consensus also considers gold anything to be tacky and corny, of very bad taste. Despite the rise of gold prices, the jewelry market is somewhat stagnant. It looks gaudy to have much gold anything around for decoration. So it stands to reason that there’s actually few services that could electroplate gold to copper at such a scale, much less so a statue of the turd in chief.
Ehh, the kind of person who would choose to make that probably doesn’t care much about safety, but that much potassium-goldcyanide would be costly.