The Franklin Mint Wouldn’t Answer the Phone
When I first saw this on my Twitter feed, I assumed it was an Onion parody or something.
Friends … it is not a parody.
Donald J. Trump’s political opponents have long criticized him as something of a cartoon character. On Thursday, the former president made himself into one — but with the aim of turning a profit.
In his first significant public move since opening his 2024 presidential campaign last month, Mr. Trump announced an online store to sell $99 digital trading cards of himself as a superhero, an astronaut, an Old West sheriff and a series of other fantastical figures. He made his pitch in a brief, direct-to-camera video in which he audaciously declared that his four years in the White House were “better than Lincoln, better than Washington.”
The sale of the trading cards, which Mr. Trump had promoted a day earlier as a “major announcement” on his social media website, Truth Social, perplexed some of his advisers and drew criticism from some fellow conservatives.
Earlier this week the former President1 teased a major announcement. For two days, there was speculation that this would be some policy initiative or campaign rally or even the announcement of a running mate (Kari Lake was a widely touted name, because apparently having one sore loser on a ticket is not enough). Instead, we got … NFTs of the Trump equivalent of Garbage Pail Kids.
These will hold their value better than the Trump trading cards.
To say this took people by surprise would be like saying the Pearl Harbor attack left America a bit flummoxed. Trump supporters demanded that whoever came up with this idea be fired. Far Right figure and January 6 convict Baked Alaska tweeted out that he couldn’t believe he was going to jail for an NFT salesman. Even Steve Bannon was rattled.
I would like to say that this damaged him, but … nothing does. As I’ve said many times, Trump could literally be filmed running down the halls of Mar-A-Lago, screaming profanities and smearing feces on himself and his polls would jump two points. But it’s yet another reminder that Donald Trump is a person who is not only self-centered, unsuited to office and has the temperament of a toddler, he’s also a deeply silly person.
Oh … and he also had an unerring sense for marks. His ridiculous NFTs? They sold out in 24 hours, netting him a cool $4.5 million.
The irony is this: all the people calling for firing whoever suggested Trump become a sleazy NFT salesman are implicitly admitting that Trump is dumb enough to let someone talk him into becoming a sleazy NFT salesman.Report
“Dumb” plus $4.5 million equals “victory” and “not dumb”.
Sleazy we already knew.
This neither adds nor subtracts from what we knew about Trump.Report
Could have sold it to him on the simple pitch “Melania failed entirely at this back in February. You can show her how it’s done.”Report
They just can’t accept that Trump’s motto is always be griftingReport
Yeah, I need a roadmap to the outrage here…
Someone explains to DJT the concept behind NFTs (a dialog worthy of reproduction) which DJT immediately grasps as free money without risk. Which, as we all know, is basically his entire MO. Sell the idea of DJT without ever having to put anything DJT at risk or having to deliver any thing related to DJT products nor be held responsible for DJT product collapse. Make a picture, sell imaginary rights to picture, keep picture and copyright. Honestly? Best idea ever for DJT. Nor can I see any ‘downside’ to his brand or understand how being an ‘NFT Salesman’ would hurt it. Need help here.
Literally the entire point of NFTs. DJT makes $4.5M for doing nothing. And Steve Bannon is supposedly put out? The only way Bannon takes a position on this is because a) He’s mad he didn’t think of it first or b) He thought of it but DJT saw how stupidly easy it was and cut him out of the $$ by going alone. Can’t see how this hurts his ‘brand’ anywhere in MAGA land or adjacent spaces.
Meanwhile, Yuga Labs (The Bored Ape company) just hired Activision Blizzard president as their new CEO on $450M seed funding earlier in 2022.Report
I think Bannon’s great fear is that the Donald is going to spend 2023 doing small grifting, dodging prosecutions, and generally looking like a tired old man. And that while the base may not lose interest entirely, the media will.Report
Maybe? But then I’m saturated in Media coverage of his small 2022 grifting and breathless Tax evasion takes. I’m cynical enough to think that coverage of Bannon’s concerns about the Media’s concerns is probably part of keeping the Media concerned.Report
Bannon’s a burn it all down guy, right? He’s got to be concerned about fragmentation. DeSantis fighting the culture war, Lake doing election fraud, Musk on social media, Cruz on crash the economy. Abbott and Ducey on the border (even with Ducey out of office). The House Republicans looking entirely incompetent.
Bannon needs Trump to be the hold-the-right-together guy. Which seems to me to require more effort from Trump than Trump is willing to put in.Report
Interesting; that’s not exactly my read on the Bannon faction. If I’m reading you correctly Bannon’s plan was for Trump to do the burning? Like they have a plan they are working on? My take from folks who know Bannon was that Trump is a signal of the burning taking place, not the agent of it. Maybe that’s Potato/Potahto but Bannon will move on from Trump as easily as he needs to.
Or are you going Baked Potato where only Trump’s incompetence is sufficiently huge to precipitate the burn, so Bannon can’t risk a DeSantis play?Report
No outrage. Just silliness.Report
Oh, yes, well it is very silly.
Where do Eminem, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaquille O’Neal, Neymar, Snoop Dogg, Mark Cuban, Post Malone, Stephen Curry, Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, and Serena Williams go to get their dignity back?Report
Serious answer: by acting dignified and letting time pass.
Of course, some in your list weren’t so great at acting dignified in the first place, so they probably won’t act dignified now, and thus NFTs will just be another splash in a bucket of piss.Report
Its useful to ask why the American rightwing has become so completely overwhelmed by grift and hucksterism.Report
Because the Democrats took over most of their agenda and they have nothing left but resentment and culture war nonsense.Report
From the web site:
Each Trump Digital Trading Card has a unique pre-assigned rarity. Some will be one-of-one’s (i.e. the only one in the world), while others will be limited to 2, 5, 7, or 10 copies. No Trump Digital Trading Card will have more than 20 copies in existence!
He sold $4.5 million, i.e. 45,000 of them, so either there were > 2000 unique cards, or it’s yet another lie.Report
P.T. Barnum was never righter.Report
Don’t leave out the possibility that there will be >2000 unique cards and some people have merely prepaid for theirs, not realizing that’s what they’ve done. Given the general production process seems to be intern-level Photoshop onto scraped/downloaded images, purchases may have come in faster than the interns could crank out the work. Even grifters occasionally sign up an honest supplier.
Been there legitimately a few decades back. The company announced the availability of a printed circuit board I had designed, anticipating sales of no more than 10-12. Orders for almost 100 boards showed up the first week. F*ck, what a nightmare.Report
How many different bored apes were there? I think they were all the same ape, with different clothing or color schemes or such. We can have Trump-as-Batman, Trump-as-Thor, Trump-as-Thor-but-wearing-a-lime-green-cape, Trump-as-Sinatra-getting-out-of-a-helicopter-with-a-martini-only-it’s-just-tap-water-with-an-olive-for-some-reason-because-he-doesn’t-drink, Trump-as-Sinatra-getting-out-of-a-helicopter-with-a-martini-glass-of-tap-water-and-also-wearing-a-lime-green-cape, and so on. All at $100 apiece, all generated by a robot.Report
Really. You think Trump behaving like Mahatma Ghandi would not upset the Right?Report
I can see conservative Christians (*) grumping about Pope Francis doing and saying things that are refreshingly consistent with the positive, good morality of actual Christian teachings, and that gives me a really good idea about the answer to this question. (Not that Francis and the RCC are above significant criticism for failing to properly reckon with their own past grave misdeeds, but some of the things Francis says and does are praiseworthy and these are the things that cheese off a bunch of American religious people who for some reason all happen to be politically conservative.)
(*) It’s been my longstanding observation that people who identify as “conservative Christians” are really into the “conservative” part, and not so much into the “Christian” part, of that label. A phenomenon we touched on briefly last week right here in these pages.Report