Welcome to the crony states of America: Ivo Vegter - Biznews

 Ivo Vegter

Yesterday marked the beginning of Trump’s new and improved USA, where the facts don’t matter and anyone can bribe the president.

It was symbolic that US president Donald Trump chose to move his inauguration indoors, to the rotunda of the US Capitol building, which has a capacity of only 2 000 people.

About 20 000 of the people who paid for tickets to attend the inauguration were relegated to an indoor stadium, the Capital One Arena, some two kilometres away, which showed the inauguration via video link. The tickets of the remaining 200 000 people who had hoped to attend the inauguration have, according to the House Sergeant at Arms, been converted to “commemorative” items.

They’ll own nothing, and they’ll be happy.

That the Make America Great Again (MAGA) faithful were left out in the cold, like common plebes, while Trump got cosy and warm with his coterie of political insiders, guests of honour and assorted billionaires, perfectly encapsulates what the next four years will be like.

Instead of having ousted the supposed elites from power in favour of rule on behalf of ordinary people, which is the promise of every populist, including Trump, the people elected a huckster billionaire who is establishing a new super-rich techno-elite − or, as outgoing president Joe Biden called it, an “oligarchy of extreme wealth, power and influence”.

Own benefit
Trump was never going to govern for the MAGA millions. He was always going to govern for his own benefit, and the benefit of the millionaires who can benefit him. The masses are just there as ratings fodder he can manipulate for unquestioning support.

To illustrate just how this oligarchy will work, one only has to look at TikTok, whose CEO, Shou Zi Chew, attended Trump’s Sunday rally and yesterday’s inauguration, all while buttering him up by appealing to his ego and obsession with ratings: “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform – one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”

That’s how you get an E.coli infection.

In a remarkable turn of events, Trump’s assurances that he would in some unspecified way come to the aid of TikTok led the company to reverse its decision to end service to US customers on Sunday. By Sunday night, the service was restored, in anticipation of an executive order granting the company an additional 90 days to pursue a sale.

The irony is that the process to get TikTok banned in the first place was started by Donald Trump himself, during his first term.

And while he now claims to have a “soft spot” for TikTok, on the grounds that it helped him win the youth vote, clearly the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is spying on these voters is no longer relevant.

Youth vote
Here’s Trump: “And as of today, TikTok is back. So, you know, I did a little TikTok thing we have a guy, TikTok Jack he’s a young kid, like 21 years old. And we hired this guy, and I went on TikTok; can you believe what I’ll do to win an election? And we went on TikTok and Republicans have never won the young vote, the youth vote. They win a lot of votes, but they never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points. So I like TikTok. I like it. I had a slightly good experience wouldn’t you say?”

I sure can believe what he’ll do to win an election. But there’s a problem. Young voters actually favoured Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 52% to 46% in the 2024 presidential election. That is certainly an improvement over his 2016 result, but he did not “[win] the youth vote by 36 points”.

How do you know Trump is lying? His lips are moving.

Corporate executives are falling over themselves to prove who can be the most obsequious lackey. Big Tech companies like Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Uber have all contributed to hand Trump a record-breaking “transition fund” of $250 million, two and a half times as much as he raised the first time around.

They know that they, like TikTok, can buy him.

Meme coin
And so can you, or anyone else in the world. Days before his inauguration, Trump –  ever the grifter – added to his tacky merch lineup of trading cards, mugs, hoodies, gold bar paperweights and Bibles by launching his very own meme coin. Known as $TRUMP, it is a Solana-based cryptocurrency token that can be bought on the open market. Its market capitalisation went from zero on 18 January 2025 to well over $10 billion by the time of writing.

Unlike, say, bitcoin or ether, the Trump coin has no function. Its sole value lies in the “greater fool theory” of investing. That is, assume there is always someone even more foolish than you, to whom you can palm off a worthless asset.

The official X feed of the coin looks like a typical crypto scam. And like any good crypto scam, the companies that launched it, CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC – the latter having been formed earlier this month – have retained 80% of the tokens for themselves. It is unclear what stake he has in the companies, or how much money Trump himself might make from the venture, but one assumes he wouldn’t be promoting it if his cut wasn’t substantial.

This scheme in essence allows anyone in the world to “donate” money indirectly to Trump himself. Self-serving sleaze and open corruption doesn’t even begin to describe this stuff.

Oligarchy
To win the support of the big-business oligarchy, Trump has promised to raise trade tariffs, which will reduce global competition for their companies, and for which ordinary Americans will pay in higher prices, lower quality and less choice.

The people who voted for Trump were left out in the cold during the inauguration, and will be left out in the cold for the next four years. Meanwhile, corporate America and billionaires know exactly how to manipulate or bribe Trump to do their bidding.

Welcome to the new crony-capitalist era. It’ll look like making America great again, but in practice, all it does is sell the power of the god-emperor of the oligarchs to the highest bidder, in the narrow pecuniary interests of a wealthy elite.

Hail to the grift!

Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets

https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2025/01/21/crony-states-america-ivo-vegter

This article was first published on the Daily Friend.