255) Day 23 -- Reason #23 to revolt against Predatory Capitalism: Political Corruption, Part 5 -- Trump's Inauguration Guests

So Trump’s inauguration happened. It definitely set a new tone for US history. But just like you can find fridges from 50 years ago still running in someone’s basement or boathouse or garage whereas new, shiny fridges are lucky to last 10, it seems that with Presidents, they just don’t make ’em like they used to.

In any case, to finish off our mini-series on political corruption through the current American lens, let’s take a look at the who’s who of Trump’s inauguration.  

First, the people you would normally expect: former Presidents and high-ranking politicians of the past, from Bill and Hilary Clinton, through the Bushes, Barack Obama, the Bidens, Kamala Harris, Trump’s VP, JD Vance and family, and former VP’s Mike Pence and Dan Quayle. 

Kind of amazing that some of these people would go.  Presidents who have watched their country turn into one of the most-hated nations on Earth, because of Trump.  People like Hilary who Trump has, many times, threatened to “lock her up”, even making it his signature crowd chant. And even people like Mike Pence!  I mean, Trump literally supported a rioting crowd that chanted about HANGING Mike Pence for doing his job in the 2020 election (and Trump just pardoned ALL those people…). Joe Biden suffered through an entire armed, violent insurrection attempt against his government, and he still showed up.  I can’t personally imagine doing that.  But loyalty to America is strong, it seems. I’m kind of astonished, to be honest.  

Interestingly, Donald Trump never attended Joe Biden’s inauguration, skipping it, despite every single outgoing President in more than 150 years attending the inaugurations. But you know Trump; if there’s anything he cares about, it’s himself, and if there’s anything he doesn’t care about, it’s literally everything and everyone who isn’t himself.  What did Joe ever do to Trump?  Other than win the election, fair and square?

A notable absence — Michelle Obama.  And really, why should she attend?  She’s not a former President, and she doesn’t owe Trump a goddamn thing.  After suffering Trump’s direct, racist attacks against herself and her husband for years, after the Trump-led “birther conspiracy” that haunted her family as they first stepped onto the national stage, after so many years of “going high when they go low”, and then watching everything they built out of the shambles of the country that George Bush left, she then watched Trump absolutely disgrace her beloved nation and make it the laughing stock of the world.  So she famously seemed to decide “fuck this”, and didn’t go.  

Just a few hours before Trump was sworn in, Michelle posted a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Jan 20th being MLK day, after all): “The time is always right to do what is right.”

I am reminded of what Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said when journalists asked her if she was attending the inauguration.  She was very blunt; “I don’t celebrate rapists”. 

Nancy Pelosi also didn’t attend. Which again, after being constantly attacked for years, and now being threatened with investigations and arrest, for doing her job and protecting democracy against Trump’s dictatorial ambitions, why the hell would she?

The MAGAs, of course, flooded the airwaves, internet and TV (well, FOX) with criticism of Michelle’s absence.  How dare she!  Of course, they had no objection when Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration because of his delusion that “the election was stolen”.  THAT was perfectly fine; THIS was an outrage!

In any case, Trump skipped one, setting a modern precedent for former Presidents out of his ego-wounded pissy-ness, and a gesture of “defiance” in order to further fuel his LIE that the election was stolen.  And Michelle skipped his, after enduring a decade of racist lies from him.  

Game theorists might call that “tit for tat”.  I call it “Yasssss, Queen!!!”

Anyway, back to the inauguration:  Who else attended?

Well, Trump’s family, Cabinet picks, Supreme Court Justices, a bunch of high-ranking Republicans, the usual.

And THEN, sitting right behind Trump in positions of honour, the richest three men in America —  President-by-proxy Elon Musk, corporate gangster Jeff Bezos, and fascist boot-licker Mark Zuckerberg. The combined wealth of those three humans = more than ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.  

And this wealth has increased by some $230 BILLION in just the 2 months since the election.  Yes, TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS. In 2 months. That is so much money, it’s impossible to wrap your head around it.  And that’s not just their wealth.  That’s the INCREASE in their wealth since the election.  No wonder Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg attended their Dear Leader’s inauguration.  His corruption is making them mountains of money.

In fact, the three of them together, just those three guys, have more money than fully HALF of the American people.  Three guys, vs. half the entire country.

So yes, no wonder they were there.  And no wonder Trump, in his rambling speech, didn’t say a word about wealth inequality leading to a crisis of poverty in the States.  Trump LOVES wealth inequality; his entire sense of self relies on it.  And his official policy is to INCREASE it, by lowering taxes on the rich and making up the shortfall ($5 trillion is the projected cost of his tax cuts to the wealthy), by cutting public services that Americans rely on to survive. 

(Remember all those Nobel Laureate economists who said his plan was vastly inferior to Kamala’s?  Well, hopefully we all remember that, for a very long time, as we watch the economic train wreck that is about to happen over the upcoming months and years.)

There were a few more tech billionaires — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, TikTok CEO Shou Zi (futilely hoping for the best?), Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), Tim Cook (CEO of Apple)….  So it would seem that Trump and Big Tech are best buddies.  Which, given Big Tech’s increasingly controlling role in our societies and democracies, this should make anyone feel concerned.  

Speaking of control, Rupert Murdoch, head villain of American media, who owns a huge proportion of the conspiracy-spewing far-right radio shows, newspapers, FOX talking heads, think tanks and other arms of the propaganda octopus that has birthed and suckled MAGA into its current grotesqueness, also showed up.  Of course!  President Trump is, in no small part, Murdoch’s creation; it’s like a parent watching their child graduate high school…. Or maybe in this case, nursery school? Has Trump hit age 4 yet, at an emotional level? The jury is out on that one.

A handful of hyper-masculinity symbols made the rounds, in the form of Mike Tyson, Logan Paul, Jake Paul, and Connor McGregor.  I assume they were there because MAGA fans love their masculine physicality heroes and the whole “alpha” vibe.  

Then again, Connor McGregor is a rapist, so maybe Trump was just with “his people”?  

And Jake Paul is a lifelong scammer, from crypto-schemes to business self-help scams, with at least two sexual assault allegations against him, a track record of racist statements and many run-ins with the law. So Trump was with “his people”?  

And Logan Paul is a crypto scammer and spotlight-hound, stooping so low as to film himself searching for suicide victims in a Japanese forest and, when finding one, putting the “find” on YouTube.  Classy guy.  So Trump was with “his people?”  

And Mike Tyson?  Also a convicted rapist. You know, it’s amazing that one President can be friends with so many rapists…. Where do they all meet? At “Rapist-R-Us” conventions? I mean, who knows? Trump was close friends with Jeffrey Epstein, after all, a little detail that MAGA either forgot, or is happy about because…”his people”.

A Grab-Bag of Dictators, Fascists, and the People who Glorify them to the Public

Speaking of promoting fascism, also in attendance were four of the very most influential right-wing megaphones out there — Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, and surprise surprise, grifter-extraordinaire and huckster of right-wing bullshit wrapped up in flimsy intellectual-speak, Jordan Peterson.  What better way to keep the MAGAs in awe than by inviting four of their key prophets?  (After all, they don’t seem to care much about the Bible’s prophets, despite all that “Christianity” we hear so much about.). These four have done about as much as anybody, ever, to brainwash and intellectually degrade swaths of the public, especially young men (who overwhelmingly voted for Trump…). “His people”.

But perhaps most eyebrow-raising, setting a true precedent in the entire history of Presidential inaugurations in America, Trump invited quite the slate of world leaders and dignitaries.  This is NOT tradition.  Traditionally, precisely zero leaders of other nations go to the inauguration….  So who were these leaders? I wonder if there’s a pattern!

• Javier Milei – President of Argentina – a right-wing populist who hard-core-hates the Left and Progressives (describing them repeatedly as “a cancer”), hates abortion, loves to insult his political opponents like he’s in elementary school, and other than supporting gay marriage, and Ukraine, seems pretty much like an Argentinian version of Trump.  

• Giorgia Meloni – Prime Minister of Italy – She tries to pitch herself as centre-right in politics, but her roots are in Neo-fascist organizations, her coalitions are with right-wing populists, and she is widely considered to be quite a bit farther right than “centre right”.  (i.e., somewhere between far-right populism and outright neo-fascism).  She hates much of the stuff that Trump hates — the gays, immigration, you know the drill. 

• Han Zheng – China’s Vice President even attended (the President was invited, but sent Han Zheng instead).  Pretty interesting, with all the apparent “security threats” Trump is afraid of with China, how readily he’ll allow China direct access to his inner circle.  But anyway.

• A host of other leaders were invited, and I’m not sure if any of them attended or not, given the media reports I’ve seen anyway.  But it’s noteworthy who they were:

  • Tom Van Grieken – Chairman of Belgium’s far-right populist party;

  • Eric Zemmour — far-right leader of the French extremist party, Reconquête;

  • Tino Chrupalla — co-Chairman of the far-right populist party, Alternative for Germany (AfD);

  • Santiago Abascal – head of Vox, Spain’s right-wing party;

  • Nigel Farage – long career in British politics, considered possibly the most influential right-wing politician in Britain, who expresses unwavering support for Trump;

  • Viktor Orbán — Prime Minister of Hungary – And one of the most notorious dictators in the world today. You know, the guy that Trump frequently talked about admiring during the election campaign, claiming that Orbán was one of his biggest supporters because, apparently, Trump is so “strong” that world leaders “are afraid of him”. (Is it really because Trump is ‘strong’ though? Is that why they’re apparently afraid? After all, Putin isn’t afraid of Trump at all. Putin knows full well that he now has “an asset” sitting in the White House.)

And so, this concludes, for now at least, our discussion of Trump “being known by the company he keeps.”  Fascists, billionaires, far-right ideologues, a shocking number of sexual assaulters, and ethics-devoid, Trump-worshipping sycophants.

Conspicuously absent, aside from Bernie Sanders who was there to witness America’s fall from grace and talk about it eloquently online afterwards, were people who want to reduce poverty, people who fight for the working class, and indeed, people who want to lower the price of eggs….

So this is the company Trump keeps. 

This is the so-called “Leader of the “Free World”.