The longest con

Amid all the other excitement of the 2024 presidential campaign, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the biggest financial fraud by far in the history of American presidential politics is happening right out in the open:

In May, Trump Media announced quarterly revenue of $770,500 and losses of $328 million. “It’s a company that essentially has the revenue of not even a medium-size McDonald’s franchise,” says John Rekenthaler, a researcher at Morningstar. “To those of us who are outside the MAGA bubble, it’s bizarre. It is this tiny business that is going nowhere.” Jay Ritter, an expert on public financing and an economics professor at the University of Florida, describes Trump Media and Truth Social as “amazingly unsuccessful.” He says, “This had a brand name, so it was differentiated from the run-of-the-mill start-up social-media companies. But they have not come up with a successful business model that has generated content, generated advertising revenue, generated paying subscribers. Or even nonpaying subscribers, for that matter.” The company has indicated it wants to expand into new areas, but few expect it will do any better. When Trump Media announced a plan to get into streaming, a business that tends to burn cash, the stock dropped 14 percent.

At times, Trump Media has been the market’s single-most-expensive stock to short, or bet against. On Wall Street, there has long been a nearly unanimous assumption that Trump will begin to liquidate his position as soon as he is able, leaving his supporters holding increasingly worthless shares. But his ongoing strength in the polls and the stock’s corresponding persistence now point to another possibility: that he will return to office and retain his multibillion-dollar stake. And that’s where things would get truly uncharted.

While watchdog groups and congressional Democrats might see Trump holding shares of DJT as president as a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, they would likely struggle to find a viable way to object, save another impeachment. Meanwhile, the arrangement would open up unprecedented channels for corruption. Especially now that the Supreme Court has defanged the Securities and Exchange Commission and all but immunized presidents from criminal prosecution for official acts, Trump would have little reason to divest or put his shares in a blind trust. Trump Media could win lucrative government contracts. Anyone looking to curry favor with Trump could buy advertising on Truth Social at inflated prices, effectively filtering cash to the company’s largest shareholder. Billionaires could buy up shares of DJT, boosting Trump’s net worth, at the same time they have business before the government — a merger they want to survive antitrust scrutiny, say, or a matter before the Federal Communications Commission. People seeking influence or favors — anyone from a rich guy who wants to be an ambassador to a criminal looking for a pardon — could buy stock to demonstrate their fealty. And in the realm of the stupid but plausible, what if the shitlords of r/wallstreetbets offer Trump a quid pro quo — they’ll pump his stock if he renames an aircraft carrier the USS Stonks? The possibilities are as unbounded as Trump’s capacity for self-interest.

From the beginning — that is, from June 16, 2015 — this whole “thing,” i.e., Trumpism’s potential destruction of liberal democracy in a wave of reactionary authoritarianism with fascist highlights, has at bottom just been another of Donald Trump’s endless stream of grifts. It started as a publicity stunt, and that’s still what it is at it’s core, at least in terms of things like pumping up the stock of a fake company to transfer billions of real dollars to Donald Trump, career criminal.

We’re just a few weeks away from Trump being able to legally use his 58% share in a company with a current market cap of six billion dollars to wipe out his legal debt, fund his presidential campaign, or buy himself a few more wives or golf courses. As of the second week of November Truth Social stock will be either worthless or a multi-billion dollar personal piggie bank, into which the plutocracy will be pouring wealth in order to openly bribe the world’s most venal human, speaking loosely, who will be a caudillo-style strongman at the head of a $25 trillion economy.

All in the game.