'Mar-a-Lago face': Writer hits Trump hangers-on for deliberate 'self-abasement'

A writer for Salon noticed all of the aesthetic "ugliness" surrounding the Trump administration and came to one conclusion: Trump himself loves the grotesque, so his faithful followers deliberately make themselves as gaudy as possible to please him.

"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," wrote columnist Amanda Marcotte. "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."

Marcotte took shots at the people who surrounded Trump — both men and women — who have a similar look: botoxed and surgically enhanced, with makeup so thick it could "crack."

She surmised that the garish look and filler-heavy faces had more to do with "kissing up to Trump" than lacking self-awareness.

ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world

"I agree with Barnard professor Anne Higonnet, who told Mother Jones it's 'a sign of physical submission to Donald Trump,'" Marcotte wrote. "After all, the look requires doing everything wrong, in a way so thorough that self-abasement seems a big part of the point."

She cited the "Mar-a-Lago face," created through "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" as being to blame for the over-the-top looks of the likes of Kristi Noem, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Matt Gaetz, and Trump's wife, Melania.

Marcotte wrote that a certain "ugliness" garners loads of attention, which is what Trump lives for.

"As a bonus, the weirdness 'triggers' the liberals, which is the goal above all others in Trumpland," she wrote. "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," Marcotte concluded. "Unable to create good or beautiful things, they express dominance by turning everything ugly."

Read the Slate article here.