Trump’s ‘Major Announcement’ Makes the Hyper-Commercialization of Christmas Complete

Two things are true about former president Donald Trump: until proven otherwise at the polls in 2024, he is the frontrunner and favorite to be the GOP’s next presidential nominee and…

…he is a world-class grifter who has spent his time out of office inventing new ways to bilk his supporters for cash.

The most recent of those schemes: the $99 Trump NFT, or what he called “Trump Digital Trading Cards.”

The “cards” sold out in a single day, netting Trump an easy $4.5 million or so, were vintage Trump nonsense – derivative and utterly useless. As Jonathan V. Last wrote:

If we’re being honest, the big surprise about Trump’s NFT cash grab is that it’s happening in December 2022, while crypto is in a nuclear winter.

If he had launched this project in December 2019, then he would have made a mint. As it is—despite all the goofing on him—Trump has made a good bit of coin. The “collection” has 45,000 NFTs in it, of varying rarity. They cost $99 to mint. The entire run sold out this morning in fewer than 24 hours. You do the math.

Why does a “billionaire” former president need to embarrass himself to pick up a spare $4.5 million?

Because he can – that’s always been the point. But Last makes a critical point about these BFTs that demonstrates a powerful political reality about Trump and his supporters. That bond is as strong and responsive as ever. Any would-be challenger to Trump has been warned:

One of the lessons of 2016 was that intensity of support matters. Wide support is important, but narrower support can overcome it if it’s deep enough. Not always. Not in every contest. But enough that it shouldn’t be discounted.

Last makes the case that despite the growing hope of the broader electorate that this latest grift is a jump-the-shark moment, the symbiotic relationship between Trump and his most fervent supporters shows his intensity of support may be impossible for even Ron DeSantis to overcome in a GOP presidential primary. Not that it’ll keep Trump from losing in a landslide to a Democrat who can adhere to the norms of acceptable behavior expected from a president.

The intensity of Trump’s support has yet to exceed 50 percent in a general election, so yes, intensity, alone, – in the general election – isn’t enough to win.

But it is enough to win a party primary or caucus. Trump proved that with little ground game, a mountain of otherwise disqualifying gaffes and a background littered with failure he could still count on a core of support big enough, and passionate enough, to win.

Even when the other candidates had organization, money, endorsements…everything that, traditionally, has been the gold standard of presidential campaigns.

The problem would-be Trump challengers face, then, is how to overcome the former president’s formidable personal advantages and win the nomination. It won’t be easy – just ask the political lifers and their teams of consultants whose clocks were cleaned in 2016.

Perhaps the best case against Trump is Trump himself. Yes, the NFTs were a joke that showed he has never respected his base. But that’s the thing…it’s a joke. Treat it like a joke. The Saturday Night Live send-up of the NFT sale was a great example of how to handle the ex-president: laugh at him.

Because Trump has been laughing at everyone else his entire life.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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