A video of two men carrying a golden statue of Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference amused social media users on Thursday with many comparing it with the golden calf made by the Israelites in the Bible's Book of Exodus. Users also pointed out the irony that conservatives who often claimed to be devout Christians failed to recognize the similarities between both the golden statues.
Bloomberg News reporter William Turton shared the video on Twitter. The 28-second clip showed two men wheeling around Trump's statue in the hall were CPAC will kick-start on Friday in Orlando, Florida. The statue sported a white shirt and a black coat teamed up with American flag board shorts, a red tie and matching red flip-flops. Onlookers cheered as the statue was taken to across the hall.
Parallels Drawn to Golden Calf
Turton's video went viral on Twitter and garnered over 1.6 million views. Many users joked that the former president's golden statue was akin to the golden calf made by the Israelites as mentioned in the Book of Exodus. 'Golden calf' began trending on Twitter in the early hours of Friday.
According to the Bible, the Israelites — with the help of Moses' brother Aaron — made the statue of a calf out of gold jewelry after they feared Moses would not return from Mount Sinai. The golden calf is considered to be an unsuitable object of worship and the Ten Commandments prohibited Christians from worshiping idols.
This is not the first time that Trump's statue or he was labelled as the conservatives' golden calf. In April 2019, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said that CPAC 2019 showed that conservatives and Republicans engaged in idolatry of Trump.
"What's happened, manifested at CPAC, is a new form of idolatry," Steele in an interview with MSNBC at the time. "Donald Trump is the Golden Calf, he is the thing that they come and bow before. And that they offer up their future political support."
Trump at CPAC 2021
Trump is set to make an appearance at the CPAC on Sunday afternoon and is expected to deliver a keynote address — his first speech since leaving the White House last month. Organized by the American Conservative Union, the CPAC panelists will discuss the alleged voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The segments in the four-day event include "Protecting Elections: Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence," "The Left Pulled the Strings, Covered It Up, and Even Admits It" and "Failed States (PA, GA, NV, oh my!)."
