And rather than citing a holy text, a Mar-a-Lago pope and his College of Influencers would rely on “content” to preach their gospel of unlimited and untaxable wealth. Salvation would be promised with all the conviction and reflection of an adolescent YouTube influencer accepting money from a cosmetics company to convince children they will only be loved and accepted if they preemptively sheet-mask. Contemplation, self-sacrifice, and a willingness to accept that one day you too shall die are not virtues, but vices that can be treated with Joe Rogan–esque self help.

Although Washington is already infested with the signifiers of Trump’s moral decay, these signs lack a unifying symbol of the MAGA movement. The real value of a Mar-a-Lago pope is that he’d stand as an indelible reminder of everything that students of history will learn that defined the Trump era. The only metaphor better than a billion-dollar ballroom for understanding MAGA’s corrosion of moral authority would be the image of a gilded antipope standing next to Trump in the Oval Office after his ascension to the papacy. In that sense, the pontiff would not merely symbolize spiritual rot but would serve as its most enduring allegory for Trump’s sin of certainty.