The Half Billion Dollar Man Part 2

DJT is back on Wall Street

Yesterday the MAGA cult-hypnotized shareholders of an entity called Digital World Acquisition voted to acquire Defendant Trump’s social media company Trump Media & Technology Group, making him $3 billion richer on paper.

As I wrote a few days ago, this is the deus ex machina - the hand of a god - coming down from above to save Trump just as New York State prepares to seize his properties for nonpayment of a nearly half-billion dollar bond. It is also a classic Trumpy long con, the essential Trumpworld business practice. In every way, it is the essence of Trumpism, a textbook example of how the fake businessman’s businesses operate, all empty gilded shells, branding over substance, entities that, once established, operate like pyramid schemes run by Mafiosi, attracting get-rich-quick sharps whose base instincts are only held in check by threats of blackmail and revenge.

This particular deal is riddled with corruption and sharps (Ukrainian nightclub owner, Miami Russians, Kash Patel), was long in coming and, because it’s complicated and quiet, has been overlooked as the toxic cloud of daily emergencies and flabbergasting news and MAGA fascism shrouds the news cycle. Whether or not Trump manages to leverage this on-paper windfall into a company-saving loan from a Slavic despot or Gulf potentate or American donor needing a favor from a future second-term President, it is a shining example of the art of the scam — and deserves closer attention.