How Trump’s ‘golden age’ rhetoric could redefine America

The golden hair. The golden penthouse. Yes, he turned down the golden toilet, but surely Donald Trump is to be believed when he offers Americans a new golden age.

Who’s on board? Not the Guardian — which recently rage-quit X — where one column warns, “Trump’s ‘golden age of America’ could be an unrestrained imperial presidency. Emboldened by a strong mandate,” the paper laments, “the Republican will bring his dark Maga vision to the US with little resistance.”

Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

But the golden age pitch is also getting more serious and perhaps unexpected blowback — from certain corners of the anti-globalist right. Elon Musk’s choice to caption his post celebrating Trump’s election win with the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum — one of the two Latin mottos on the Great Seal of the United States — has set off skeptics worried that the rise of an antichrist might be around the corner.

“This phrase resonates with the term ‘Golden Age,’ which has been referenced by Donald Trump and is echoed by various new age teachers and high-degree Freemasons, who at higher levels, are known to worship Lucifer,” one popular X account warns. “These expressions align with Biblical warnings of a great deception, where people are described as welcoming what is referred to as the beast system with open arms.”

It’s always alarmingly easy to see how the world’s most powerful people could give in to what must be the enormous temptation to sell their souls for control of the planet. So far, Musk’s biggest ambitions concern not Earth but Mars, population zero. And both he and Trump are assembling a governing team focused on avoiding world war and countering China’s bid for global domination. They’re also both friendly to Christians — a stark contrast to many leaders of the other political team.

Nevertheless, we’d do well to carefully discern how to avoid paving our way to hell with intentions as good as gold. Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

They say there’s a tweet for everything — sorry, a post — and in this case, it’s true. In typical X dot com fashion, it’s a half-joke with a deeper meaning written by a pseud: “Golden age Hollywood actor’s wikipedia biographies are like, ‘he worked as a train conductor, ranch hand, denim model, and itinerant drifter before being drafted to serve in WWII. When he came back he decided to become an actor and two weeks later was discovered by Fritz Lang.’”

Interesting, isn’t it? How radically different is that “golden age” culture from the one that scares critics of the gilded empire across the political spectrum? Doubtless, the Hollywood golden age itself was one all too festooned with excess and corruption. But the films themselves, which give the era its name, brought a refined yet accessible beauty and grace to the public — and they did it by welcoming ordinary people with real experience living in the rough-and-tumble world onto the screen.

The point isn’t that we ought to romanticize a bygone age or value the appearance of virtue over the reality of vice. It’s that when Americans circulate fruitfully with one another, that energy enlivens and elevates our institutions, setting fresh standards for our social, cultural, and economic life.

I often go back to Alexis de Tocqueville when measuring the pace and scope of change in America — sometimes what seems to be a new twist is something he saw coming long ago — and, in that spirit, here’s one of my favorite of his observations, as timely and instructive now as ever.

Men connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means, God with ends: hence this idea of greatness, as men conceive it, leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all men to follow the same course towards the same object is a human notion; — to introduce infinite variety of action, but so combined that all these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity. The human idea of unity is almost always barren; the divine idea pregnant with abundant results. Men think they manifest their greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the purpose of God which is simple — his means are infinitely varied.

Now, there’s a MAGA vision everyone should be able to get behind.