But They’re Our MAGA Billionaires!

But They’re Our MAGA Billionaires!

Take a good look at the above photograph. These are the folks who are positioned closest to Donald Trump on the dais at his Inauguration at the Capitol Rotunda on January 20th. Tech billionaires, even given preferential seating closer to Trump than his own cabinet appointees (which include a few more billionaires). It includes once Democratic Party supporters who rushed to Mr Trump to preserve their assets from attack and maximize governmental policies now that Trump was the winner. They could not contribute enough to his inaugural moment; it was clear that the new kids on top are the same as the old kids on top. Tech billionaires, crypto supporters and media moguls groveled at the feet of the new President (co-president with Elon Musk, right above). There could not have been a clearer announcement that the government had indeed transitioned from democracy to oligarchy.

But wait, there’s more. Amplifying on the Supreme Court’s determination of presidential immunity if the commander-in-chief’s actions have a colorable relationship to an official governmental function, that must include the pardoning of over 1500 convicted criminals, mostly felons, including many who clearly perpetrated violence (some life-threatening) against Capitol Police officers. Not to mention that the constitutional right to pardon is a presidential absolute. With some sentences running more than two decades for serious felonies, what Donald Trump seems to have created with this mass of pardons and commutations is a private army, loyal only to him, with no accountability to any other statute, constitutional provision or body of police governance. Trump’s message at its worst is: “If you do what I ask, no matter if it violates laws or constitutional proscriptions, I will pardon you.”

Even the police unions that backed Trump were aghast: “The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which endorsed Trump in September 2024, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) warned that the blanket clemency offered to rioters – including those convicted of violent offenses, and several leaders of the attack on the Capitol – threatened Americans’ safety.

“‘The IACP and FOP are deeply discouraged by the recent pardons and commutations granted by both the Biden and Trump administrations to individuals convicted of killing or assaulting law enforcement officers. The IACP and FOP firmly believe that those convicted of such crimes should serve their full sentences,’ the IACP and FOP statement said.” The Guardian, January 22nd.

In WWII Germany, the SS troops had Hitler’s blessing and protection. Extermination of “Jews and other undesirables” was sanctioned and protected by Nazi beliefs and belittlements. Millions perished, including 6 million people who only “crime” was a particular belief in God, per a book (the Old Testament) that was also holy to Christians. Back to contemporary America. Will we even have another election to alter the course of our nation? Trump squeezed a victory (the popular vote differential was about 1.5%) mostly based on economic malaise with his voters’ being unconvinced that Biden had “turned it around.”

Trump has already conceded that he is unlikely to bring grocery prices down, and his “drill, baby, drill” mantra (when the US is already at record-breaking oil and gas extraction levels) is unlikely to lower prices at the pump. Without workers to harvest crops (traditionally the vast majority have been undocumented aliens) or remotely enough construction workers to build housing at affordable levels (again so many are undocumented aliens), food prices are poised to soar, and the issue of housing affordability will soon be dramatically worse. LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik (January 22nd) notes that the Trump administration’s statement that they would initially only pursue the criminal element couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“On Jan. 7, the phones of immigration advocates in Bakersfield [an oil and agricultural region in Central California] began lighting up with calls from immigrant farmworkers. The messages said the U.S. Border Patrol was conducting an indiscriminate dragnet in the area, pulling over vehicles presumed to be carrying immigrants to work and taking dozens into custody… To the advocates, this didn’t seem right. The Border Patrol — a unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection — had not been seen operating in anyone’s memory in Bakersfield, some 300 miles from the patrol’s California offices in El Centro, a few miles from the Mexican border.

“Although there are two detention centers in Bakersfield run by ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — none of the detainees could be found in either one. The Border Patrol, a sister agency of ICE, staged its raids not at ICE installations, but out of a parking lot at a facility of the Interior Department, which has nothing to do with immigration or border security… The Border Patrol eventually asserted that it had conducted a four-day ‘targeted enforcement’ operation aimed at undocumented immigrants with criminal records, ultimately detaining 78 individuals mostly for crimes such as drug trafficking, burglary and child abuse.” Those witnessing the events saw hundreds of individuals loaded into busses and taken away. Food costs, here they come!

But Trump had more than kitchen table, bread and butter issues to justify his victory. Gen Z male voters, particularly those without higher education, reacting to toxic “woke” feminine values seemingly rising to usurp male dominance, dislodged young Hispanic and white college-educated men from the Democratic Party, unlikely to return to the Dems anytime in the foreseeable future. Picking on LGBTQ+ people, a tiny minority, seemed to work too. Since Trump cannot deliver on the basic economic issues, he needed “culture wars” and “gender confusion” to apply his politics of blame.

After being beseeched by an Episcopal Bishop at the National Cathedral to show mercy to vulnerable and terrified minorities (particularly in gender cohorts), Trump reacted by reversing longstanding policies that restricted immigration enforcement at sensitive locations such as schools, churches, and hospitals; as of January 21st, these venues were now open game to ICE officers.

All this as Trump’s billionaire buddies were chaffing at the bit to get the debt ceiling raised enough for them to get the massive tax cuts Trump promised corporate America and the wealthiest class. Everyone knows that incurred massive increases in our deficit to serve no purpose other than to reward Trump’s cronies (the notion of “job creation” from tax cuts has never worked)… may destroy the global strength of the US dollar. So what, say the MAGA billionaires, we can always cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, educational support and other “entitlements” so we truly entitled billionaires can buy more homes, jets, yachts… and M&A our way to bigger and more powerful companies, soon to be free of regulation.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if this is too stressful for you, how about a cruise in the Gulf of America or, perhaps when summer comes, go to Alaska to visit Mt. McKinley.