Donald Trump is an ass man, and he still doesn’t care about the Constitution. These are the two main things we learned at a rally over the weekend.

Onstage in Michigan, the rapper promised to support Trump “forever and ever.” Minaj told the crowd that it was an “honor to stand with” Trump, adding: “If you run again, I will support you again.” Trump, who is constitutionally barred from being elected to a third presidential term, presumably has other things to worry about right now than the prospect of a future campaign endorsement. But the enthusiasm with which Minaj delivered her pledge was striking. “I love him so much,” she said.

In return, the president told the crowd that Minaj has “one hell of a beautiful ass” that’s “hard to miss.” He even asked her to show off her rear end to the crowd.

Possibly the weirdest thing about this exchange is that it started with Trump explaining why he’d fixated on a man’s ass at an earlier rally in Ohio. A few days prior, he’d praised Sen. Jon Husted’s “ass” and the rest of his athletic body.

Of course, Trump is no stranger to ogling people’s bodies — I’ve seen him make remarks about young men and women’s bodies in every iteration, from more PG but strangely admiring comments during graduation ceremonies and executive order signings in the Oval Office to outright lechery in more casual contexts, right back to the infamous Hollywood Access tape — but a laser-focus on the butt has become a central part of his midterms commentary that few people saw coming.

There is something quite obviously unsettling about watching the president of the United States talk about a female celebrity’s backside at a campaign rally while that celebrity stands beside him, pledging everlasting political devotion. But misogyny and disregard for normal democratic process are both central themes of the increasingly radical core of MAGA. So are we that surprised that Trump is flying the singer of ‘Anaconda’ around on Air Force One, so he can talk about her ass about five seconds after calling the Democratic candidate for the local Senate seat a “jihadist”? Well, how could we be?

Minaj has not always been MAGA: she openly criticized Trump’s immigration policies during his first term. In 2018, she tweeted about coming to the U.S. as “an illegal immigrant” from Trinidad at 5 years old and added that she was horrified by family separation policies that would’ve impacted her if they had been enacted at the time. It’s hard to square that Minaj with the one who declared that she loved Trump so much she wished he could flout the Constitution on Sunday, while in the background Ilhan Omar — the Democratic congresswoman who, like Minaj, came to the US with her family as a child — spoke about a recent federal raid on her house. Arresting and/or deporting Omar has become another rally-talk obsession with Trump lately.

Never mind, though, because if they come for Omar then I’m sure they won’t come for anyone else! On the flight to Michigan, Minaj praised Trump’s current foreign policy and described him as a man who had “won three elections,” echoing his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. White House communications director Steven Cheung subsequently floated her as a potential press secretary, a joke that the official Trump War Room account enthusiastically amplified.

It is tempting to dismiss this whole thing as another episode of Trumpian absurdity, a celebrity cameo designed to generate headlines in the final stretch before the midterms, with a nice bit of weird ass banter to rile everything up. Yet the spectacle is revealing. Republican politics has increasingly become a form of personal loyalty theater, in which allegiance to Trump is demonstrated through extravagant praise, public displays of affection and performances of devotion.

Trump’s inner circle are looking and sounding nervous these days, opening almost all their speeches with effusive thanks to the president and closing them with toadying little phrases about how so-and-so policy could only ever have been achieved by this, the best president of all time, the cleverest and most handsome and most incredible man who ever lived.

Anything that could even be interpreted as a criticism — or an insufficient display of gratitude and praise — is now potentially career-ending. If you’re a politician who hasn’t paid your dues, prepare to be cut loose. If your press conference didn’t go well, you’re out the job after less than a week. If you’re a reporter in the White House who asked more than a softball question, prepare to be barred from future events. So dance to the tune of Trump the savior, and dance prettily, and make it quick!

Minaj openly stating that she has no respect for the 22nd Amendment and that she would back Trump “forever” is just the logical endpoint of these sycophantic displays. She is saying what is meant to be heard, even if the administration officials are better at saying it without saying it.

We have no reason to be surprised: Trump has flirted with these ideas for a long time. A lot of it is ragebait and trolling (see: the “Trump 2028” merch that’s been on sale on the official Trump website for months, with the tagline “Rewrite the rules with the Trump 2028 high crown hat”) but it’s never not had a kernel of truth. It was 2016 when he confidently claimed at a rally that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and not lose the backing of his supporters, and look where we are now.

Indeed, Trump has always sought to inspire this Bonnie-and-Clyde, us-against-the-world kind of worship among a dedicated fanbase, rather than seeking to elevate policies (I mean, policies are hard work!) He clearly much prefers “I love you” to “I respect you,” and his idea of a lasting legacy is more ‘big gold arch’ than ‘economic stability’.

If what you really, really want is simply a fierce, romantic, star-crossed, illogical devotion, then why not add in a little admiration for the ass, too? After all, every successful love story has a bit of sexual tension. And if that turns your stomach, then maybe you’re in the wrong room — because here in MAGA HQ in 2026, we smile and we nod, and we leer and we grab, and of course we want your body but we also, increasingly, demand your mind.

Or, as Minaj herself put it in her iconic verse in Monster, “First things first, I’ll eat your brains.”