America in the Trump era is simultaneously deadly serious and utterly ridiculous. Both of those qualities are present, in the extreme, in a story that sober-minded serious journalists struggled to convey.
“Trump’s social media video garners pushback from Arabs and Muslims in U.S. and Gaza” reads the headline from NPR, whose reporters settle into treating this video as just another “controversial” statement from that colorful character in the White House. And how does one report on his “controversial” and eyebrow-raising statements? By turning to “critics” who can then be quoted as representing the “other side” of the statement or argument.
That’s what NPR’s report settles into, and how they frame their reporting: “Arabs and Muslims in the United States and abroad are criticizing a controversial video posted by President Trump on social media.”
That’s wrong-footed because it gets both parts of this story wrong. It fails to appreciate the deadly serious aspect — that this is about Trump’s explicit plan for ethnic cleansing and that ethnic cleansing is not a partisan or special-interest atrocity that only concerns “Arabs and Muslims in the United States.”
But this also misses the huge, extremely newsworthy story here about the utter ridiculousness of Trump’s delirious nightmare video. The report barely scratches the surface of how full-gonzo batshit loony this video is:
The apparently AI-generated video includes depictions of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing in Gaza, and imagines scenes of destruction in Gaza transformed into a glitzy Riviera-style resort called “TRUMP GAZA.”
The video also shows children running out of the rubble into a world of palm trees and luxury buildings, and a towering golden statue of Trump. It depicts men in apparent drag dancing in bikinis on the beach, Trump enjoying a belly dancer and a man resembling Elon Musk being showered with cash in the form of U.S. currency.
That’s all in there — and more. But it’s all even worse and weirder than that.
No, weirder than that, too. Whatever it was you were imagining when you accepted what I just said there about it being weirder than that, it’s still weirder than that.
Those “men in apparent drag dancing in bikinis on the beach” are some AI-generated image grafting the heads of Mac from It’s Always Sunny and Yitzhak from the Angry Inch onto the bodies of two female belly dancers using CGI software I can only imagine was developed for some extremely niche porn site.
The “towering golden statue of Trump” seems to be the central motif of Trump Gaza. It’s an image that seems to come from one of the apocalyptic visions in the later chapters of the book of Daniel.
Maybe this bit:
And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
But in his estate shall he honor the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.
The video also includes golden balloons of Trump’s head and scenes from a gift shop in what appears to be a “Trump Gaza” version of one of his failed Atlantic City casino hotels.
The gift shop sells miniature replicas of the golden statue of the King Who Exalts Himself, as well as versions featuring a golden, seated Trump (or, possibly, a golden Trump caganer).
Again, it’s all just so very, very, very weird.
Someone made this for Trump and showed it to him. Donald Trump watched it. He saw the gigantic golden statue and the golden balloons and the golden caganers. He saw the image of him “enjoying a belly dancer” with a CGI-inflated booty and no pants. And he saw the bikini-clad belly dancers with the heads of bearded men. And then Donald Trump said, yes, let’s get this out there — let me post this to all my followers on social media and let me tell the whole world that I approve of this and that this is my vision for the future.
You can watch the full video at that NPR link. Or you can watch it over at Jeff Tiedrich’s blog (who has more screenshots from the video than just the ones I borrowed here), see: “Donny posts his nightmare hallucination of an ethnically-cleansed Gaza.”
Marcie Jones also has the video at Wonkette, where she supplies a more thorough and accurate description than the one NPR provides.
The deadly serious and utterly ridiculous aspects of all of this are both present here in such extreme form that it’s hard to focus on either. But both need to be pursued as actual, meaningful, very important news.
I don’t need to hear or read any reporting on what the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, has to say about this. I need to hear what Trump himself has to say about it. And what J.D. Vance and Elon Musk and Marco Rubio and Pam Bondi and Mike Johnson and John Thune and every one of the other Republican senators and representatives has to say about this. About all of this. Specifically.
“Speaker Johnson, do you support ethnic cleansing in Gaza?”
And, also, “Speaker Johnson, do you believe there should be a multi-story golden statue of Donald Trump in Gaza?”
And also, I suppose, “Speaker Johnson, do you support Donald Trump’s plan to bearded women dance in bikinis on the beaches of Gaza?”
I would also like to hear Paula White-Cain respond to those questions. And Al Mohler, and Doug Wilson, and William Wolfe, and Chris Rufo, and all of the other white nationalist Christians who haven’t yet been officially appointed roles in the Trump administration. They own this too. All of it. The gleeful desire for ethnic cleansing and the golden statue and Mac in drag. All of it.
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