Mexico City Burns Donald Trump in Effigy in Celebration of Easter

Impact

In Mexico, Easter tradition dictates that a much-loathed politician be burned in effigy, symbolic retribution against Judas for his betrayal of Jesus. The subject usually hails from within the country, but this year, the dubious honor went to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. His consistently offensive rhetoric on the subject of Mexicans warranted an exception to effigy norms.

Read more: ISIS Uses Donald Trump's Image in New Propaganda Video Celebrating Brussels Terror Attacks

"With all of the stupid things he has said about Mexicans, I thought people would like to see him burning as Judas," said Leonardo Linares, a fifth-generation Mexico City maker of papier-mâché Easter effigies, according to the Guardian

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It makes sense. Trump has made many slights against Mexico: Indeed, he launched his bid for the presidency with a claim that Mexican immigrants were drug dealers, criminals and rapists. He's also proposed a Lucille Bluth-style plan to close the U.S. border with Mexico by building a giant wall — or, more exactly, to have Mexico build and pay for said wall. 

Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, rejected that proposal in the clearest possible terms.

"I am not going to pay for that fucking wall. I am not," he told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo. "[Trump] should know that, and I am not going to apologize."

According to the Guardian, the choice of annual effigy "is a good barometer of social discontent in Mexico and an indicator of the issues that most infuriate the country's population." Understandably, the people of Mexico are none too fond of Trump

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"For Latinos here and in the U.S., he's a danger, a real threat," Linares told the Washington Post. When Trump's 10-foot-tall likeness was set aflame in the streets of Mexico City on Saturday, the Post reported, it was amid chants of "death!" and, eventually, "thunderous cheers" when the dummy's head exploded. 

According to the Post, a figure of a cigar-smoking, Cuban flag-waving Obama also burned, along with an ISIS combatant toting a kalashnikov. 

"They're the same," Linares said, according to the Guardian, when asked about the Trump-ISIS connection. Which is as telling an indicator of national discontent as one could ask for.

Correction: March 29, 2016