Letters

Mardi Gras, subdued in New Orleans, has migrated, maskless and mindless, to the CPAC freak show in Florida, heralded by the “golden gaffe” — a huge idol-sculpture of Trump with an oversized gilded head (representing his ego?) on a scrunched-up, distorted body — which has attracted genuflections and others praying to it and taking selfies.

The celebration culminated in the ruminations of the cunning, albeit stupid, original still insisting that the election was “stolen” from him. Unfortunately, this pagan celebration to corruption, deceit, lies and danger will not vanish with the coming of spring.

It is apt that CPAC has co-opted Mardi Gras, which has never been a celebration for a good many of the citizens in New Orleans. When the magnificent gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was interviewed for an oral history project by the Library of Congress, she said that Mardi Gras was greatly feared by the Black citizens of New Orleans, who it is worth remembering never fared very well under the law there, because it was a time of unchecked and sanctioned lawlessness. During the celebrations and carousing, marauders could, and did, do anything they wanted, including gross criminal acts and violence, knowing they would never be punished. Ah! Mardi Gras.

This practice of antic celebration and lawless violence showed itself, at the invitation of the golden-head Trump, on January 6. New calls for “the prosecution by military tribunal and public assassination of Hillary Clinton,” among a growing list of others who have offended the beloved leader, emblazon social media. Goons with guns, led by a golden grotesque. And ginned up by the wobbling Ted Cruz and the screeching Trump family add-ons.

Something ugly and dangerous is in the wind.

Idolized in gold as a political messiah by his messianic, ignorant followers, and immortalized by the cognoscenti for his propensity to defecate in gold toilets, Trump is underpinned by a disgusting, bankrupt, servile political class, aka the Republican Party, who have attached their tentacles to his overly long coattails.

If the law finally applies to him, it will be as an acid wash to his coverings of gold accretions, washing privilege and patronage away and revealing the rusting base metal underneath.

Meanwhile, be on the alert for flashes of violence and further flurries of rhetoric and deceit.

Frances Genovese

Southampton