Donald Trump’s Planet of the Apes
If you’re the product of early twentieth century European immigrants, as am I, chances are the first thing your ancestors saw of America was the Statue of Liberty. The statue was a gift of the French people, conceived in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln posthumously delivered the 13th amendment of the Constitution, abolishing slavery. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886, in New York Harbour, where it stands today.
In 1903, the final stanza of the poem “The New Colossus” was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal’s lower level. The poem reads in part, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Now France wants the Statue of Liberty back. At least according to one French lawmaker. French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, of the Socialists and Democrats group, has said that the Statue of Liberty should be sent back to France because the United States has chosen to side with tyrants. I can’t say I blame him. The statue and the attached poem have now become false and have been made a mockery by the Trump “administration.”
“We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,’” Glucksmann told a party convention. “We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home.”
As with the idea of Jesus, your average drooling MAGA cultist loves the symbolism of the statue. To them they probably see in it the right to bear arms and tell racist jokes. But the actual words of the poem would probably put him or her off. They would seem far too “woke.” If they knew the poem was written by a woman they would immediately suspect DEI. They would rechristen it “The Statue of Liberals.”
They would no doubt prefer to round up the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” at gunpoint and send them back to where they came from, or into for-profit concentration camps. When you uncover the actual meaning behind MAGA symbols you find them teeming with contradictions and hypocrisies — for MAGA, anyway.
I’ve seen the Statue many from the New Jersey Turnpike driving into New York City. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like me, many of you who have seen it with your own eyes thought of the iconic scene at the end of Planet of the Apes. [Spoiler alert.] Charlton Heston’s character, realising he’s been on the earth of the future all along, gets down from his horse and curses humanity. “You finally really did it,” he says. “You maniacs! You blew it up!”
It made for great theatre when I first saw it as a child. Today it is full of chilling portents, or at least relevant symbolism. I hope it never comes to pass. But, reflecting on the final scene of that great film, I now longer find the idea of a planet run by apes — and no disrespect meant to apes — entertaining.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.