Trump’s Obviously Corrupt Plan to Use Taxpayer Money to Buy Shitcoins Is the Indefensible Thing That Republicans Must Defend Today
Here's what needs to be rationalized in order to make it to Wednesday
Good morning, Republican lawmakers. Here’s what’s on the agenda today:
So: The president wants to spend taxpayer dollars to buy fake non-money that Twitch streamers use to buy drugs. And he’s not limiting the government to the less-laughable cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin — if Bitcoin is Coca-Cola, Trump wants to also buy Jittery Jimmy’s High-Fructose Fizz Drink. Trump has mused that buying cryptocurrency could get the government out of debt, which sounds like the plan a degenerate gambler makes right before his body turns up in a New Jersey landfill.
The potential for corruption is off the charts. This plan clearly benefits someone — the value of the cryptocurrencies Trump mentioned spiked after the announcement — but because cryptocurrencies are anonymous, we don’t know who got rich. It could be donors, foreign interests, or Trump family members — the only thing we know is that it was somebody terrible. Plus, someone placed a highly leveraged $200 million purchase right before Trump’s announcement, so there’s probably an old-timey insider trading scam happening alongside this Digital Age scam-of-the-future.
Another likely beneficiary is the guy who told Trump to do this: David Sacks. You may know Sacks as the ardent Trump backer and frequent repeater of Kremlin talking points whom Trump named as his “Crypto Czar”, with the “Czar” part really making sense given Sacks’ beliefs. Sacks says that he sold all of his cryptocurrency before Trump took office, but we can’t verify that, because crypto is anonymous. We do know that Sacks’ venture capital firm — the stake in which Sacks has not said that he sold — invests in a crypto fund whose top five holdings are exactly the five cryptocurrencies that Trump wants the government to buy. Sacks is a really lucky dude! It’s like if I was named Blog Czar and then got the government to buy a billion I Might Be Wrong subscriptions, and to be clear: President Trump, that offer is very much on the table.
So, Republicans: Put on a pot of coffee, roll up your sleeves, and get to work rationalizing why this is actually a good move that will Make America Great Again. It might take some doing! Because this really looks like a payout about as obvious as if Trump got caught handing someone a bag with a big fucking dollar sign on it. Plus, it’s hard to see how the government buying highly volatile non-money will improve our finances — it would probably be less dumb to buy Beanie Babies, or rotting fruit. If Trump spent taxpayer money on magic beans, we’d at least get beans, but it’s hard to see how off-brand crypto provides long term value to anyone who doesn’t want to buy crystal meth or a Cambodian prostitute.
Of course, any Republican who crosses Trump runs the risk of getting primaried. Remember, Republican elected officials: Your opposition to Trump must be limited to one extremely mild statement muttered to a reporter as you enter an elevator and one bland press release issued at 6PM on a Friday per term! Anything beyond that, and you risk getting the Liz Cheney/Jeff Flake treatment. Plus, there are the January 6 protesters to keep in mind, and those people are nuts! Nuts and out on the streets, as of six weeks ago. So, factor that in when crafting your official response — I suspect that you will!
You’ll probably muddle through today. Just hide behind a tree if you see a reporter coming, and if they catch you, maybe play the “the issue needs more study” card. The fact that you’ve gotten this far proves that your evasion game is world class. You’re a fighter pilot dodging anti-aircraft fire, you’re Han Solo navigating the asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back, it’ll take more than a hilariously obvious funneling of taxpayer dollars to Trump’s allies to take you down.
And then you’ll be ready to get up bright and early and do it again tomorrow! Who knows what Wednesday’s scandal will be — maybe something with the Saudis, perhaps? Or it could be something with animals — it’s been a while since we had a good Bill-de-Blasio-killed-a-groundhog-type scandal. I know that Trump scandals are usually in the influence-and-graft genre, but R.F.K. Jr. is in the administration, and that guy never encountered an animal and failed to do something weird.
There are only 1,418 days left until Trump leaves office. Only 1,418 more times that you have to wake up, look at the news, and realize that getting through the day will require you to take your soul out behind the barn and shoot it in the back of the head. Only 1,418 more public humiliations, only 1,418 more obvious flip-flops, only 1,418 more days of being more submissive than a Geisha with mono. You can do this — you’ve got a black belt in servilitude, you will persevere. Unless, of course, public opinion turns hard against Trump and you get ousted in a wave election.
Which could happen. This could all go very wrong, in which case you’ll be seen as one of the historic embarrassments who led the country to ruin. Did you see that the Atlanta Fed just downgraded its Q1 GDP projection by 6.7 percent!?!?! Holy guacamole! The possibility of an economic catastrophe is drawing closer, and so is the possibility of a massive scandal, plus Trump triggering a constitutional crisis by defying a court order seems almost inevitable. We might be on the cusp of a political failure unlike anything in our lifetimes, and anyone anywhere near it will suffer instant ignominy and career death.
But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Today, just focus on ginning up talking points for this plan, which is either a brilliant scam or dumb-as-dogshit policy. Maybe handing taxpayer cash to struggling businesses is “vital for creating a thriving crypto industry”, or maybe these coins are a “high yield investment that will solve our debt crisis”. Yeah, that’s the ticket. MAGA rubes will lap that up. You’ll survive another day, which means that you get to wake up tomorrow and do it all again.
J.D. Vance Might Be a Straight-Up Policy Moron
When I worked in a congressional office, we would get faxes (yes, faxes — I am 97 years old). It turns out that there are self-styled geniuses across the country who will fax in “solutions” to intractable problems; we’d get detailed plans for balancing the budget, restructuring health care, or achieving Middle East peace. Most of these plans were — to be polite — nonsensical garbage from self-important loons. I suspect that many of these people had seen the movie
The Crypto Collapse and the Value of Wet Blankets
It’s exciting to be part of something. Whether it’s Woodstock, the Cultural Revolution, or a really fun sex cult, feeling like you’re part of a vanguard ushering in a brave new world can be invigorating. Involvement in these movements can engender a sense of empowerment and purpose. Plus, in two of the three examples I just mentioned, you get to bone a lot.
It's hilarious how the right always accused the left of shady, backroom corruption when Trump's corruption is just right there out in the open.
I disagree with the sentence "The potential for corruption is off the charts." because it implies it hasn't happened yet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vmym2jvy9o He hawked $TRUMP just before inauguration. Someone pumped a bunch of money in, and then it became another shitcoin.
Do you remember Biden saying "time to buy BidenBucks? I promise you can spend them just like real bucks."
In the old days to get rich politicians would need to something like establish a "charity" that hired their friends, or write a "memoir" that mysteriously had 2 million copies sold, but there was gigantic skimming by all the middlemen and legitimate employment for the booksellers and publishing houses and charity employees.