Die Zeit Brings Back Phrenology to Harangue Donald Trump
Now we can finally explain 'casual Friday'--suits being the new brown shirts, legacy media stoops to a new low, even though one would think that to be impossible…
Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine. Content by the cited author, if you can believe it.
They all look so MAGA!
High cheeks, angular jaw: Trump's team wears the Mar-a-Lago face. If you want to be part of the soon-to-be US president's dynasty, you have to accept your visual fate.
By Rabea Weihser, Die Zeit, 3 Dec. 2024 [source; archived]
We had just vowed for the 76th time never again to judge the appearance of politicians [which means legacy media did so 75 times already before publishing these lines], never again to infer their hard line from Wagenknecht’s eyeliner, their secret meetings from Lindner’s hairline, or their street credibility from Habeck’s wrist—and then this: our leading cultural medium, The Hollywood Reporter, urgently recommends that we take a very close look at the new Trump cabinet [note that Hollywood is a cesspool of deviance and, yes, demonic practices; note further that this particular rag is owned by Eldridge Industries, LLC whose owner Todd Boehly is worth 8.5 billion dollars (according to Forbes, says Wikipedia) and went to the London School of Economics, i.e., the Fabian Socialist puppy school, which also ‘splains’ how the ostensibly left-liberal Die Zeit newspaper would lean hard on an oligarch-owned outlet: because Mr. Boehly espouses these same elitist IngSoc sentiments].
The ominous headline of an article in the magazine reads: ‘Will “Mar-a-Lago Face” Take Over D.C.?’ Spontaneous answer: Yes, that’s what the people said on 5 November [note that Ms. Weihser, citing the subheader, omits the header, which reads: ‘Plastic Surgery Trend’; in Hollywood—how utterly shocking™ is that?]. However, it is obviously not the president-elect who is meant, but his newly elected entourage [as the Gospel of Stupidity and Dishonesty held, judge not, but judge his entourage]. And indeed, a strange face emerges: many in this circle are made-up people [orig. gemachte Leute, which means wealthy (and could mean ‘constructed’ or ‘created’ people, too), but Ms. Weihser means ‘underwent plastic surgery’, which is also what the underlying piece says but which Ms. Weihser has omitted from her essay]: much more conspicuously treated with syringes, lasers, and possibly scalpels than is usual in the political sphere [remember: Ms. Weihser musters a piece in The Hollywood Reporter to make this claim: you can’t make up this kind of stupidity, hence I suggest we applaud her]. In Washington, they say, almost all the important people have something done: paralysing something here, filling something there. But it’s rarely so obvious.
As the Mar-a-Lago face becomes a meme from before and after pictures of the presidential staff, there is an opportunity to marvel once again at how Donald Trump turns private preferences into politics [I suspect considering policies is way above Ms. Weihser’s paygrade]. No one can help his character. Decades as a billionaire’s son, beauty pageant organiser, and casting show producer have left their mark on Trump [this is called: envy-projection]. That’s why he likes women who make money with good looks, including his money. And he also likes them to be around in his villa called Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
The aesthetic of these women is basically that of a Miss Universe from the 1980s [isn’t it obvious? Check out her bio (Germa only)]: slim body, light-coloured, smooth skin, flowing hair, small nose, small chin, high cheekbones, big eyes, long eyelashes, full lips [interestingly, no mention of skin colour or, as Americans would have it, ‘race™’]. By exaggerating these sexual [sic] characteristics, the face then becomes pornographic [Ms. Weihser is currently pushing her new book about faces, scheduled to appear in early 2025, in case you’re wondering about possible conflicts of interest]. If you want to have very large lips, very high cheekbones, very smooth skin, very long eyelashes or a very small nose for attention or money, for example, you can’t avoid cosmetic surgery [speak for yourself]. And then you appeal to viewers of TV shows like Temptation Island and Real Housewives. Or a man like Donald Trump [who is, of course, the only man who ever found that appealing, allegedly, of course, for I don’t know Mr. Trump (but neither does Ms. Weihser, I suppose)]. Or his sons, who in turn can’t help the way they’ve been moulded [no need to talk about ‘Joe Biden’ and his ‘favourite son’ Hunter, I suppose]. Transgenerational trauma. Wives Ivana Trump and Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka Trump, daughter-in-law Lara Trump and almost-daughter-in-law Kimberly Guilfoyle have resigned themselves to their optical fate [if you made it this far, well, congrats—this is mental, eh? I submit, though, that Ms. Weihser is normalising trans-humanism, ‘far right-wing™’ style].
Replace the Base Cap with Botox
But they are not the only ones wearing the Mar-a-Lago face. Homeland Security Secretary-designate Kristi Noem, soon-to-be Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi have also adapted. As has Laura Loomer, the far-right conspiracy ideologue who helped Trump to his ‘They're eating the dogs’ hit. That’s just the way he wants it, what can they do [remember JFK who held that people should not ask what their country can do for them…].
The fact that the careerist men of the Republican sphere are now also playing along was a shock [no women would ever play up their looks to get ahead is the subtext here], however. In the summer, Congressman Matt Gaetz from Florida spoke at the party’s convention. He applied for the office of Attorney General with all his might, but had unfortunately overdone it with the Botox injections to such an extent that his tightly drawn forehead and Mephistophelian eyebrows became a laughing stock [Mephistopheles is the voice of Satan in Goethe’s Faust and, by the way, the chief inspiration for Karl Marx].
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is impressed by men who convey grit and military strength [no need to come up with a stringent line of argumentation, this is legacy media, and I’m somewhat perversely intrigued to read Ms. Weihser’s book because I suppose, if it’s written in the same ‘style™’, it will be a car crash hard to avoid]. Since 2018, he has repeatedly spoken of the central cast when he sees his fellow men in political contexts that no acting agency could have put together more impressively. For example, when withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, meeting with a delegation from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or talking about IS fighters. ‘They're stronger, bigger, tougher, meaner, and actually better-looking in a certain way’, CNN quotes him as saying.
Good Trump men look healthy and sleek in uniform, have full hair, porcelain white teeth and square jaws—everything Donald lacks [remember: Mr. Trump is in quite good shape for a 75+ year-old, esp. if compared with ‘Joe Biden’; also: what’s wrong with being healthy and in shape, Ms. Weihser?]. The central casting director has apparently also used these criteria to select his future defence minister Pete Hegseth, his soon-to-be transport minister Sean Duffy, and his designated housing minister Scott Turner: men who bring the full package in the private television sense. And anyone who doesn’t exude enough masculinity can have their jawline secretly injected and their chin tilted during their lunch break [I don’t know what these fellers look like (I could care less), but I’d like to know if they’re more competent that, say ‘Rachel’ Levine of Pete Buttegieg: is it too early to contrast these men with, say, Olaf Scholz or Robert Habeck?].
Women with doll faces, men with soldier faces: Trump idealises gender [sic] stereotypes that reflect the maximum influence of oestrogen and testosterone [even creatures without a central nervous system can establish the two sexes, by the way]. Officially [lol], the Mar-a-Lago faces have grown naturally, of course. Their looks are particularly popular in circles that feel threatened by modern thinking and life, for example among tradwives and masculinists [whatever that means]. So Trump’s favourite look fits in with his politics.
Should the Mar-a-Lago face flicker across all screens from January and permanently change the ideal face of the USA, it would hardly be surprising, writes The Daily Beast magazine. After all, almost half of the Trump cabinet is made up of camera-ready Fox News presenters or people who are very comfortable in the dentist’s chair [again: thy name be—envy]. The next step seems logical: if a MAGA makeover is a prerequisite for being close to Trump, it could soon become a recognisable feature of his fans. Replace baseball caps with Botox and flags with filler.
Donald Trump wants to produce attractive images with his ministers and advisors—as he sees it. And he expects absolute loyalty from his staff. Whether consciously or intuitively [nothing is as natural to Ms. Weihser and her ilk than speculation and insinuation]: by selecting his cabinet, he is already entering the field of aesthetic, body-political standardisation, from which only he as the patriarch is exempt [I fear she means this; I’d also add that it’s hilariously mean as this intimates that style over substance is what’s going on, thereby glorifying the outgoing ‘Biden’ administration’s greatest diversity hires, such as press secretary KJ Pierre or DoD chief Lloyd Austin, to say nothing about the weirdo transvestite Sam Brinton who likes to steal other people’s luggage at airports]. Because he himself is already powerful enough. His relatives and employees should visually merge with one another. They should share the same features, just as they are naturally inherited in every powerful clan. Donald Trump, who would love to be king of the world, is thus forcing a pseudo-biological, quasi-dynastic legitimisation on himself: a ruling class that can be recognised by its face. Admittedly, it too is only boiling with water. But it should be as thick as blood.
Bottom Lines
Ms. Weihser is as stupid as they come, and I suppose it’s hard to find that kind of next-level nonsense ‘even’ if compared to US legacy media ‘reporting™’ on these issues.
High cheekbones, small nose, angular jawline—in Donald Trump’s circle, everyone looks the same. The generously touched-up Mar-a-lago face shows that the next president is building a dynasty that is recognisable at first glance.
The above I took from Die Zeit’s X/Twitter feed, and I’d merely add: the individuals Ms. Weihser mentions and plays up, they’re also all ‘white™’—Lord help us, is what she appears to mean.
Then there’s the utterly insane aspect to writing, as a middle-aged woman (Ms. Weihser wasa born in 1981) who disparages both men and women, masculinity and femininity.
And then there’s the utter absence of any policy-related or otherwise ‘troubling’ issues, ranging from the Russiagate hoax to the many shenanigans at the FBI associated with the Hunter Biden laptop to, literally, anything that reeks of anything sane and connected to reality.
For sure, doing so would convey a certain amount of legitimacy on Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominations or policy pursuits. I personally find it almost as strange as it is, I’d argue, telling that the most controversial appointee—RFK Jr.—is glossed over. Better not to talk about something that might risk any of Die Zeit’s remaining (few) readers to enquire about, say, the facts of RFK’s activism and deeds. (Note that I’m highly suspicious of this, not because of his admirable track record with respect to environmental protection and vaccine injuries—but because the push to MAHA via healthier food is both a no-brainer as well as nothing Big Pharma can’t live with as it’s Big Tobacco that owns most food producers/distributors in the US.)
Finally, let’s not mince words about the obvious parallel here: NAZI™ Germany and the implied, if never spelled out directly, comparison between the Führer (also, of course like Mr. Trump, someone who liked good-looking, able, and healthy men and women around him) and the blood-and-soil allegation about Mr. Trump that’s actually spelled out explicitly at the end of the piece.
At least we can now understand and explain ‘casual Friday’: well-dressed, good-looking, and able individuals are ‘bad™’, hence suits are the new brownshirts.
There, I fixed this for you.
In fairness, Die Zeit is a brilliant satire magazine, second only to the inimitable Guardian.
I want her to write an article on how (or what, even) the correct and approved face looks like.