Donald Trump won in November with a campaign built on "tough guy" posturing. Despite his inability to walk more than a few yards without calling for a golf cart, Trump supporters and his billionaire benefactors love to crow about how their leader is an icon of virility. Indeed, the masculinity braggadocio of the past year has been inescapable, from Trump's tedious "fight fight fight" slogan to Trump-loving Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg crowing that he wants more "masculine energy" at his company, where over 60% of employees are men.
And yet, at Trump's supposedly triumphant moment of being sworn into his second term Monday, he and his billionaire bro crew of Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos revealed themselves to be rather soft. Protecting delicate skin and elaborate makeup took precedence over the long-standing tradition of holding the inauguration outside. Instead, the soft-handed MAGA men of Silicon Valley stuck to the warmth of the Capitol Rotunda.
Owners’ box
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 12:47 PM
The setting was appropriate. It's where dead luminaries — most recently former President Jimmy Carter — lay in state. Despite all the forced smiles and cheers, the inauguration had strong funeral energy, right down to Melania Trump dressing like the widowed trophy wife she no doubt thought she'd already be by now. Trump was caked in "open casket" levels of make-up, and while alive, brought sleepy energy that only added to the funereal tone.
Trump and Melania share a ... kiss?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 20, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Musk couldn't even get through the speech without a cringeworthy thumbs-up.
Trump: "We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars." (Get a load of Elon's reaction)
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 20, 2025 at 12:38 PM
As Rebecca Shaw of the Guardian wrote last week, "I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers." Economist Paul Krugman concurred, noting that many "rich men are extraordinarily insecure," and bitter upon finding out there are things "money can’t buy, like universal admiration." In the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie observed, "We have a clique of powerful middle-aged men who want nothing more than to be boys," following "a selfish, petulant and narcissistic man-child" of a president. Even during his speech, Trump couldn't muster the energy of a winner. He read his speech in the tired, bored voice of a junior high kid reciting a book report written off Cliff Notes.
"We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety and peace for citizens," he lied, with a weariness that made this preposterous statement even more laughable. Trump could not hide his annoyance that he had to go through these motions before commencing with the real task at hand: exploiting his position to suck up as much corrupt cash as humanly possible.
The contrast between Trump's lifeless delivery and the text of the speech was uncanny. On paper, the speech is the same rhetoric of domination and violence Trump has vomited at us for nearly a decade. He fantasized about "the disastrous invasion of our country" by refugees and invoked imaginary rates of "devastating crime." His tone, however, belied the lassitude of a man who increasingly struggles to hide his age behind all that makeup. He only got a little energy when he returned to his natural state of whining, rolling out a bizarre grudge about alleged slights against President William McKinley (1897-1901) and regurgitating a 70s-era complaint about the Panama Canal.
But hey, at least the sound system itself rebelled against Carrie Underwood singing "America the Beautiful."
technical difficulties derail Carrie Underwood's performance
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 20, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Trump was so bored with the charade that he didn't bother putting his hand on the Bible during his swearing-in.
As he swore the oat of office, Trump did not place his hand on the Bible.
— Michael Steele (@michaelsteele.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 12:35 PM
The farcical nature of the inauguration was a fitting reminder that everything about the MAGA movement is a scam. The weekend before the inauguration, Trump cashed in on his cultists' faith with a grift so obvious it would make Jim Bakker blush: releasing meme coins named after himself and his wife. Judd Legum of Popular Info summed up the move with, "Trump has turned the inauguration itself into a brazen grift, launching a meme coin hours before being sworn in."
Trump has turned the inauguration itself into a brazen grift, launching a meme coin hours before being sworn in. The Trump Organization owns 80% of the coins
— Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social) January 18, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Big words like "oligarchy" are being thrown around in the face of the tech billionaire's row at the inauguration, but that may be giving them too much credit. What attracts these vultures is the stench of scam that exudes from Trump. There was once a time when Silicon Valley made money by creating useful products people wanted, but that time has passed. We're now in the era where the entire internet looks like an email to your grandmother from a purported Nigerian prince who will marry her in exchange for her Social Security checks.
As tech journalist Ed Zitron wrote in a recent newsletter, companies run by Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos have created "the Rot Economy," where "the paying customer" is "a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value." To go on their websites is to be overwhelmed by shady characters trying to drain money from you in unsavory ways, from catfishing accounts to the systematic replacement of name-brand products with knockoffs with names like Jzzzacha or Meamoer. (I made those up, but they could just as easily prove to be real "brands" on Amazon.) Not only do these companies eagerly help con artists find their victims, but, as Zitron documents, these apps have become increasingly unusable "as a means of increasing engagement metrics and revenue." Search engines bury useful results. Social media feeds are full of junk. It's all meant to keep users scrolling, desperately hoping to find what they were looking for, and unable to seek alternatives, due to monopolization.
President Joe Biden's administration was quietly waging war on corporate scammers, suing them for junk fees, forcing subscription services to let customers cancel, and going after Google's monopoly that has so degraded search engine functionality. Sadly, those efforts will be killed or canceled with Trump's return. Above all else, Trump is here to be the handmaiden for a whole new era of scamminess. However miserable your consumer experience was before, wait until these already wealthy vampires snake their hands further into your pockets.
Trump, in his leaden inauguration speech, invoked an America of "explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers." As always, Trump is stealing the valor and hard work of others. He invoked a past prosperity, but his actual plans are to make a fortune by swindling the rest of us. Along with the meme coins, we can expect an escalation of the tactics Trump used in the office to make money in his first term, from forcing the government to pay his businesses for services to using his hotels as a funnel for bribery money from business and foreign leaders. In this, he shares a vision with his tech bro posse. This is not an economy built to last, but a bunch of rich men stealing everything they can on the way out the door.
Bezos interferes with editorial at the Washington Post now, but somehow a story slipped through that highlights how much various levels of scumbag dominated the inauguration party scene this week. Highlights include "the Crypto Ball, where crypto bros ate petite Maine lobster rolls while caterers carried trays of McDonald’s" and "the Power 30 Awards, a sort of frat party for TikTok influencers," where people drank the "TokTail," which "tasted like gasoline. The reporters witnessed dirty GOP trickster Roger Stone, free to commit more crimes after being pardoned during the last Trump administration, have this totally normal conversation with Javier Milei, Argentina's wax-faced MAGA-esque president.
“Capitalism works!” Stone shouted to Milei, whose sideburns are as thick as his populist rhetoric. Milei wore a tux. His hair was a defiant bramble.
As Stone wagged his finger at Milei, an aide tried to interpret the pronouncements into Spanish.
“Yes! It’s okay!” Milei said, referring, presumably, to capitalism. “It works … very well!”
There was once a time when the conservative argument behind "capitalism works" would be something about free markets and competition creating prosperity for all. Now the mask is fully off and we see what this slogan really means: rich people get all the money and the rest of us can suck eggs — if you can even find them anymore at the supermarket.
