Our big, beautiful boy is about to become a man for the second time, and life has never been so good. Trump heads into his Monday inauguration with the entirety of both the Republican Party and the business world fawning over him in a way they didn’t when he was first inaugurated in 2017. Democrats in Congress have substituted the #Resistance for the #RelativeCooperation. The many confirmation hearings this week for his nominees, controversial or not, went without serious incident that would call into question their viability. Trump and his envoys played a major role in working with the Biden administration to achieve an elusive ceasefire in Gaza this week. He was going to be chilly at the outdoors inauguration—the setup for which a lot of resources had been devoted to—so he got them to move it indoors. Once that’s done, he’s going to be firing off executive orders at a rapid clip. The Resolute Desk Diet Coke Button will be reinstalled. Plus: He doesn’t have to go to jail! If that’s not a plus, what is?
Trump must think he’s king of the world right now. He’s getting everything he’s always wanted. The wealthy and powerful are swearing allegiance to him. He’s going to hold what was, at least, the most respected political office in the world. He’ll be immune from prosecution and can do what he likes. Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times writes that billionaires and multimillionaires “are flocking to Washington,” buying houses in the most prestigious neighborhoods. Who wouldn’t be first in line for the oligarchy, if you had the money?
Put more plainly, the pigs are lining up at the trough.
Trump suddenly has a lot more money, too.
The $TRUMP memecoin — a financial asset that didn’t exist on Friday afternoon — now accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump’s net worth.
Why it matters: The coin (technically a token that’s issued on the Solana blockchain) has massively enriched Trump personally, enabled a mechanism for the crypto industry to funnel cash to him, and created a volatile financial asset that allows anyone in the world to financially speculate on Trump’s political fortunes.
After another massive overnight rally, as of Sunday morning Trump’s crypto holdings were worth as much as $58 billion on paper, enough — with his other assets — to make him one of the world’s 25 richest people.
Where it stands: While the Biden administration broadly took the view that memecoins like $TRUMP are securities subject to SEC regulation, the incoming Trump administration has pledged to be much more crypto-friendly and to regulate such coins with a light or nonexistent touch.
Some news sources tut-tutted about ethics and conflicts of interest and self-dealing and such, but they’re no fun.
Trump held a pre-inauguration rally and the actual Village People performed there. Does it get any better?
Trump is at his peak, says The Economist. It’s all downhill from here. “Mr Trump is at the peak of his power, before he has had to do anything unpopular, or disappoint any of the factions competing for his attention. … The beginning of the end of the Trump era will kick off with large-scale deportations on Tuesday, once the inauguration festivities have come to a close.”
And the price of eggs will continue to climb. Once Trump actually starts doing stuff, the glow might wear off pretty darn fast. I dare say the oligarchs won’t care.
I understand all parties have signed the Gaza cease fire deal, and that exchanges of hostages/prisoners are already beginning. I hope it holds up. A lot can go haywire.
Needless to say, I will not be watching the inauguration or following the news about it.
"Needless to say, I will not be watching the inauguration or following the news about it"
I'm right there with you. We already know how to do this, I did it from 2016 to 2020, every time that (as Swami would say) big bag of shit would come on the TV I would change the channel. I never watched a SOTU, speech, press conference none of it I wouldn't even watch news stories about him. Neither my wife or I can stand to look at that big fat makeup caked orange face of his. I just can't take the low-grade marketing bullshit and I'll never understand how people can be so dumb as to actually consider it anything but nonsense. I'll tune in in a year or so when the economy tanks just to watch him squirm, sort of like I did during covid. It's going to be an ugly few years, let the magats wallow in the cesspool they voted for, at least we know it will be the last term for this horrible man, unless of course he just decides to stay in power? Either way it's going to be a bit of a train wreck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcYtqr_Xfro
You know how stupid the average person is? Well, half of them are stupider than that.
And rightly so. As one of the few writers with credentials to write about religion and the real meaning of separation of church and state, your expertise is desperately needed.
David French wrote the linked piece for the NYT that illuminates what has one of my recent favorite words I usually pair with elitism.
Texas appears to be the new Kansas, the laboratory for the republican party. Everything is "bigger and better" there of course.
Not the second coming of Bob Dole but the second coming of Sam Brownback. We knew it was version two of something.
Opinion | Texas Has a Perverse Idea of Religious Freedom – The New York Times
Today Tik-Tok went to church. Yesterday it went dark.
"Needless to say, I will not be watching the inauguration or following the news about it"
I'm also right there with you – I've set my TV to the Cartoon Network for the day, to make sure that I won't be counted as someone who watched…though it won't matter, of course, he'll just lie and claim he had the largest audience ever by a "bigly" amount.
He's such a baby…had to make the flag not fly at half mast and then moved the inauguration indoors – for his billionaire buddies and other sycophants only, of course, all the 'little people' who paid a lot to attend will be left out in the cold…and won't even have the Jumbotrons to watch, since they removed them.
Such a perfect metaphor for what's coming! The rich are on the inside – while the peons paying the bills are left out in the cold.
What an effing disaster this is.
I haven't been watching either.
Neo-feudalism. That's what the world is headed for. Neo-feudalism.
Yes…I've been telling people that for years now – and they always seem to think I'm over-reacting. Of course, as the saying goes "The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting"…and, now, here we are.
"{Washington} became America's first president, the most revered role in the world until 2016." – Philomena Cunk, Cunk on Earth – on Netflix
Make America Kittens Again – Extension for Firefox and maybe others. Replaces his photo with Kittens, and I'm allergic to cats.
I'm encouraged that the Village People played, I'm guessing "YMCA", the perfect thing to rile the evangelical base.
I am all for clumsy moves like this, and for the parade of dunces Trump is installing. The MAGAs have to have their eyes opened to the truth about Trump. The sooner the harsh medicine hits, the sooner the nightmare ends. I expect violence from them, in return for his betrayal. The two shooters from this summer were the bare beginnings of this.
The rest of us will need to buckle our safety belts and strap in. This is the time to stock up on food and any big purchases before prices go up.
I wrote a quote from Yogananda on my whiteboard: "Keep your distance from whoever or whatever creates disharmony". And one from Sadhguru, "Every day, commit to creating a peaceful, joyful world for others and for yourself. If you fall 100 times, that's 100 times to try and put this into practice"
The Parade of Dunces
Those are great, Thanks!
Those are great, Thanks!
You reap what you sow. "We", a majority of 1.5% by the popular vote, decided to do this. All of us are along for the ride, like it or not. And I don't.
As I see it, if Trump tries to keep the promises he made, those he seems to be serious about, tariffs and mass deportations especially, it will be an economic disaster for regular Americans. If he goes after Medicaid and the ACA to try to balance the budget as conservatives are considering, that will hit the needy INCLUDING a lot of red-neck states that depend more heavily on the federal safety net than NY or CA. (Suck it up, KY, when your food stamps are canceled.)
It's going to be up to the 48% who voted against Trump's idiotic posturing to hold him accountable for the consequences with and to the 51.5% who thought this was gonna be fun. Housing will get more scarce and more expensive. Rents may go up. Food prices may go up. Imported everything may go up.
Make Trump own it.
I'm still having a hard time believing he actually won ALL of the battleground states AND the popular vote – considering that, on November 4, his approval rating was 52.5% Disapproval and 43.6% Approving, according to Five Thirty Eight polling. When almost 10% of the population doesn't like him – how does he pull off those victories?
Jim –
A significant portion of voters have discarded (for lack of a better word) process and they want instant results. Much of Democracy is process (campaigns, elections, committees, negotiation, compromise, votes, amendments, etc) which, at best, only delivers progress – not the complete destruction of those one views as enemies or the permanent (irrevocable) installation of your views enforced by police with no judicial review.
A cousin of that word "process" is "competence." Like the level of understanding one achieves in a field by structured education leading to a degree. (And I've always said a degree is a license to learn – you learned the concepts and vocabulary well enough to develop "competence" and with luck and much sweat, you ascended to "mastery" in that field.
"Competence" and "mastery" are an affront to the populist idea that my ideas are as good as yours even if I am uninformed and if you possess a wealth of facts on the issue and an understanding of the forces at play, be they medical, economic, environmental, OR POLITICAL.
I believe "Anyone can become president" in the same way I believe "Anyone can be a brain surgeon." With enough smarts first to get into college and apply yourself to a decade of apprenticeship after that you might be a great surgeon. So also politics – if you are gifted and have the vision, and you apply yourself to a decade of apprenticeship (at least) in politics, making contacts and learning the general science behind all the more specialized components of politics, geopolitics, economics, monetary issues, ecology and climate, science (enough to converse with scientists), medicine, (enough to converse with health experts). Get my drift?
Almost nobody has the brass to say out loud that the "average" guy on the street is NOT qualified to hold public office without additional training and exposure to the elements, be it on a school board or planning commission. (My mother was on the Santa Cruz Planning Commission and she studied the principles the City Council refused to admit. The results are now evident.)
We are courting disaster now that we've elected an idiot with an oversized opinion of his own genius who appoints equally unqualified persons to positions of critical importance to run everything from the Pentagon to Public Health.
The good news is that the crash will be so spectacular that everyone will be adversely affected (except plutocrats) and the pain may be so severe that even the idiots who voted for Trump (excluding die-hard MAGA) will demand change. There won't be space to go further right so there will be movement to the left.
I think it's inevitable that the alliance on the right will fracture as all elements in the MAGA universe vie for supremacy when Trump is revealed for the idiot he is. (Germany believed in Hitler – until they didn't. Which by some coincidence happened when napalm rained on German cities. Pain is a great teacher. We're in for some pain.)
I think the ship of state will withstand Trump. The United States Constitution will survive. If the right disintegrates post-Trump, the left needs a charismatic leader with vision. I'm not sure who that will be – there are a few whose vision I have confidence in but can they capture the imagination of the masses. For now, we must survive.
Well, I sincerely hope you're correct and I'm wrong.
Excellent response, Doug; thanks for focusing on the experience/expertise thing. The proposed cabinet appointments are a nightmare.
One of my pet peeves relates to the committee hearings with these mickey mouse nominees. They're constantly saying that they "won't answer hypothetical questions." I'm pretty sure that in the business world (from small business to international corporations), when they're interviewing someone for a job, they ask hypothetical questions and if the applicant refused to answer a hypothetical questions he/she would never get hired.
Welcome to 1933, history rhymes. The little man in Germany had about the same popularity when he came to power and bullied his way into total power. He had radio. The orange toad has the internet. This time the same thing will happen — factionalism will break the opposition and the desire to survive without getting beaten by the brown shirted proud boys will cower the workers. Now we have better opiates, though, figuratively and literally: video games and legal super-pot will break any resistance.
I don't see a solution-oriented populace out there, only folks addicted to being angry and stoned.
Let's go with the adage it is always darkest before the dawn for a while at least. Many historians claim that Germany lost the century by going fascist. Many U.S. citizens oppose racism and the inevitable outcomes like genocide. They just do not see the path we are on. Yes, many minds are drug fogged and blind with greed. Some of them even abhor the inevitable end of this path. Now is not the time to go along to get along. Taking other paths just avoids the crowd.