Just six months into his first term, Donald Trump had an Oval Office meeting with then-Republican Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, eight years before she became his Homeland Security director. According to the then-congresswoman’s account, she encouraged the president to visit her home state, reminding him that Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota.

Trump replied, “Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?” Noem added, “He wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.”

In 2019, with Noem serving in the governor’s office, an aide working in the Trump White House reportedly reached out to her, asking about the process of adding additional presidents to the monument. In 2020, Trump wrote via social media that adding his likeness to Mount Rushmore sounded like “a good idea” to him.

Now that the Republican has returned to the White House, the topic has apparently made a comeback. Last week, some Fox News personalities talked about “a growing number of conservatives” who want to see Trump on Mount Rushmore. Around the same time, as HuffPost noted, one of the president’s congressional allies unveiled a legislative proposal in pursuit of the idea.

A Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would add President Donald Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore. “Let’s get carving!” Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted on X Tuesday after introducing legislation she said would recognize what she called Trump’s “remarkable accomplishments” and “the success he will continue to deliver.”

It’s important to emphasize a couple of highly relevant details. For one thing, as the public information office at Mount Rushmore has repeatedly made clear, there is no room for additional faces on the monument.

For another, the Florida congresswoman’s bill will almost certainly fail: To date, it’s picked up a grand total of zero co-sponsors, and to see this as a serious attempt at legislating would be a mistake.

But if that’s the case, why bother even mentioning it? Because of the degree to which it’s part of a larger phenomenon. As The New York Times put it, “A competition of sorts has broken out for whom the Republican base will see as the most pro-Trump member.”

The Times continued:

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The rush of flattering legislation, some of which even the lawmakers concede is unlikely to pass, stands apart from merely carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda. … “It shows the power that Donald Trump has within the Republican Party these days, and that Republican members want to stay on his good side,” said Sean M. Theriault, government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “A lot of these people are in really safe districts, but they’re also thinking about what their next step is. And so if they have designs on being in the Senate or running for governor or even a position in the administration, then there’s no better way to get on his good side than to do these over-the-top moves toward him.”

Unfortunately, the number of over-the-top moves is considerable. Among the most absurd — aside from the Mount Rushmore bill — was a proposal from Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who unveiled a measure to allow Trump to seek a third term. The fact that the proposal would not allow former President Barack Obama to do the same thing made the absurdity that much more obvious.

But there’s also a bill to rename Dulles Airport after Trump, bills to “expunge” Trump’s first two impeachments, and even a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico to bring it in line with the president’s preferred moniker.

I’m reminded anew of the response to the Ogles bill from Filipe Campante, a professor at Johns Hopkins University: “The reason why this is bad is the very fact that it’s transparently ridiculous: It shows how this is becoming a Kim Jong-Un-style cult of personality, where the sycophants try to outdo one another in their groveling to get the attention of Dear Leader.”

That competition, alas, is just getting started.