The Don Colossus of Doral - How a Pastor Dedicated the Republic in Gold Lacquer

Note before reading: It is recommended not to read the following text on an empty stomach, but also not directly after eating. Possible side effects include quiet head shaking, prolonged silence at an open window and the suspicion that the world in 2026 is being written by someone who no longer takes himself seriously. Anyone sensitive to gold lacquer, pastors or patriotism in capital letters should read in company.

There are images that do not need commentary because they comment on themselves. A man made of gold, twenty-two feet tall including the pedestal, gilded like a candleholder from the living room of an elderly aunt, his right fist raised toward the sky, beside a palm tree, a golf course and a pastor holding a microphone. This is what the United States of America calls its democracy in May 2026.

At the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami, the “Don Colossus” was unveiled, a twenty-two-foot gold statue of Donald Trump in a pose modeled after the moment he rose back to his feet after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. The fist raised upward, blood on his face, Hollywood could not have staged it better. Now the entire thing stands in gold, gilded, purchased for $450,000 and financed by a group of crypto investors simultaneously promoting a memecoin called $PATRIOT. The republic as an advertising vehicle for gambling money. Gold exchanged for faith in the blockchain. A business missing only one thing - dignity.

The ceremony was led by Pastor Mark Burns, a member of “Pastors for Trump” since 2023 and something resembling the president’s spiritual adviser, assuming those two words can still be placed next to each other. Trump himself joined by phone, thanking Burns and the attendees, a gilded image of himself behind them and his voice coming through the speakers in front of them. Burns spoke of a historic moment, of gratitude, honor and remembrance, of “more than a ribbon-cutting ceremony.” He also delivered the line that lingers in the mind - the statue was “not a golden calf.” Anyone who feels compelled to say that already knows what has been erected before him.

“We worship the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone,” Burns continued, with twenty-two feet of gold lacquer over bronze standing in front of him, calling it a symbol of resilience, freedom, patriotism, courage and the will to continue fighting for America. He thanked God for preserving Trump’s life multiple times, most recently during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. A pastor standing before a golden statue of a living president praising the Almighty because that president is still alive. If one had to search for a sentence that summarizes the year 2026, it would be that one.

The White House stated that it had not been involved in the project. Burns himself said otherwise. In the end, it no longer matters which version is true because both describe the same republic, only from different angles.

The statue was created by seventy-three-year-old sculptor Alan Cottrill from Zanesville, Ohio. He openly explained how easy it had been to convince Trump’s people to approve the additional $60,000 charge for the gold lacquer coating. They had “naturally loved” the idea, he said. It had been like selling a glass of ice water to a man dying of thirst. Difficult, it certainly was not. It is rare for an artist to speak so openly about how cheaply the vanity of the powerful can be purchased. Cottrill did it, and nobody objects because nobody can.

The gold is not accidental. Since Trump’s return to the White House, the Oval Office has been redesigned with gilded furniture, gilded lamps and gilded decorations. The West Wing colonnade is now a “Presidential Walk of Fame,” displaying portraits of former presidents inside gold frames. Even policy now carries gold in its name, such as the “Trump Gold Cards,” a visa program for wealthy investors seeking to buy access to the American market. A country turning itself into a showroom in the color of its own self-importance.

And then there are the great American patriots. At least that is what they call themselves, while the president thanks them on Truth Social for the statue at his own resort - “The Real Deal - GOLD - At Doral in Miami. Put there by great American Patriots!!!” 23,100 hearts. In 2026, patriotism is the word people use to describe themselves when they cannot find the correct one. These are not people standing up for a country. These are people pouring a country into gold because gold is easier to understand than a constitution. Every day they betray the very thing they claim to defend and call that betrayal love. They place a man on a pedestal who tears down every pedestal the republic once stood upon and mistake it for an honor. It is an honor. Just not for him. It is an honor bestowed upon their own emptiness, cast into the material that best reflects what is not there.

The statue will remain standing until someone eventually knocks it down. Maybe a storm. Maybe a sober day. Until then, it remains exactly what it is - a monument to a time in which a pastor could stand beside a golden sculpture of a living president and feel compelled to say the word “calf” because everyone else had already been thinking it. We will continue fighting it because anything else would amount to the silent permission through which the world sinks a little deeper into itself every morning.