Monument to a man
In a recent post, we suggested that Dolly Parton-style personal humility could help Donald Trump‘s opponents, both in this year’s midterm elections and in the 2028 presidential elections, by standing in sharp contrast to Trump’s desperate need to be seen as “the greatest.” Trump has spent his career surrounding himself with gold fixtures, fawning sycophants, and participation trophies, all meant to broadcast a false impression of success.
Thirty-five years ago, Bret Easton Ellis’s novel “American Psycho” savaged this type of excess through Patrick Bateman, a young stockbroker who worships Donald Trump. Bateman treats Trump as the yardstick against which he measures his own success: looking like a winner means looking like him.
This selfish elitism, easy to satirize in Trump’s lifestyle, also shapes his narrow priorities in the White House. In his second inaugural address, in January 2025, he called for a new “Golden Age”, saying: “We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country.” What Trump left out is that such wealth flowed overwhelmingly to a narrow class of industrialists, while most Americans worked long hours for low wages. He has been working to restore the “Golden Age” only for a select few, such as the four men who sat closest to him at his inauguration: Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), and Sundar Pichai (Alphabet). Their companies have since disclosed that, in 2025, on a combined $315 billion profit, Tesla paid no federal income tax, and the others paid only single digits, largely thanks to Trump’s tax breaks.
Trump’s aristocratic attitude extends past corporate boardrooms and straight into personal favors. This week, Trump told reporters he pressured Canada into certifying Gulfstream jets for U.S. sale after a friend complained about being unable to buy one.
But while Trump performs such favors for his cronies, America’s national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time, and the bond market has started reacting convulsively, with the 30-year Treasury yield recently hitting its highest level since 2007. Last month, investor Stanley Druckenmiller publicly warned that the long-term Treasury yield has become “the only fiscal disciplinarian the U.S. has left.” This means that the government has to pay investors more to keep borrowing, and that higher rate becomes the floor for what banks charge everyone else. Ordinary Americans feel such pain first and foremost, through higher rates on their home mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and other financial products. However, when asked about the economic pain that Americans are feeling, for example, from higher prices due to his Iran War, Trump said: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”
Nevertheless, voters have some recourse, if they act, including voting of course. For example, a Gallup poll taken several months ago found that 71 percent of Americans oppose having a data center built in their community. That backlash has caused Pennsylvania’s governor to issue an executive order restricting their construction. Other states, such as New York, have taken or are considering similar actions. This may help explain why corporate political donations this cycle have already hit $646 million, up 40 percent over the last presidential election. The company execs must be a bit scared, demonstrating that, despite all that is stacked against them in the new Trump Golden Age, ordinary Americans might still be able to make their concerns count.
Photo by Dave Nakayama, used under Creative Commons license. https://tinyurl.com/4cc6m896
