'At war with reality': How 'Mar-a-Lago face' and MAGA aesthetics show 'physical submission to Trump'

24 March

During Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York City, many Republicans showed up at a Lower Manhattan courthouse wearing red ties — an item of clothing Trump is known for wearing. Trump's critics attacked the matching ties as an example of how cult-like the MAGA movement can be, arguing that in Trump World, it isn't enough to embrace MAGA policies — one also has to look MAGA.

MAGA men, critics say, will wear choose ties and suits that look Trumpian, while MAGA woman often have spray tans.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte examines MAGA aesthetics in an article published on March 24, emphasizing that Trump and his allies show "dominance" by getting others to look and dress a certain way.

"The reality TV host has always embraced an aesthetic that is as hideous as it is expensive, from gold-plated everything to his vile haircut to his ill-fitted suits," Marcotte argues. "It's only grown worse in the decade since he first ran for president, as both the leader and followers compete to inject as much unsightliness as possible into the American field of vision. Eye-bleeding internet memes have given way to uncanny AI-generated images of Trump or Elon Musk dressed as ubermensch. It's always with a grotesque, shiny, overdone quality — the visual equivalent of a burned steak covered in ketchup, a favorite Trump meal."

Marcotte continues, "MAGA men range from t-shirt guys to expensive suit dudes, but regardless of where they fall on the spectrum, it's vital to look bad. T-shirt guys, now joined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, favor a gold chain over a wrinkled shirt. The suit guys prefer the Jordan Peterson practice of clashing patterns and a poor fit."

Marcotte cites Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) as two examples of Trump allies who are going out of their way to look as MAGA as possible.

"Then there is the 'Mar-a-Lago face,' created by a combination of aggressive plastic surgery, fake tan, and make-up spackled on so thick that it would crack — if the fillers hadn't already paralyzed their faces," Marcotte observes. "As Inae Oh noted in Mother Jones, most people who get plastic surgery seek subtlety, but Mar-a-Lago face is 'ridiculously blunt.' As one plastic surgeon told her, it's 'over the top, overdone, ridiculous.'"

Marcotte adds, "The effect is to turn real human faces — mostly women, but some men — so fake-looking it's uncanny, as if an AI image generator had replaced a person with an exaggerated version of themselves…. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is an especially painful-to-see example. She even recorded a video of herself getting extensive dental cosmetics, lest anyone mistake her blazing white teeth for the real thing."

There are even makeup tutorials showing women how to look MAGA. Marcotte notes that Anne Higonnet, a professor at Barnard College, told Mother Jones that trying to look MAGA is "a sign of physical submission to Donald Trump."

"Call it the 'car crash' principle of aesthetics," Marcotte argues. "As a bonus, the weirdness 'triggers' the liberals, which is the goal above all others in Trumpland. But there's also an ideological project, however unwitting, in the uncanniness. Fascism, especially the 21st-Century version practiced by the MAGA movement, is at war with reality. The hyperreality of the MAGA aesthetic is about power. Unable to create good or beautiful things, they express dominance by turning everything ugly."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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