MAGA has Built a Castle of Lies, But it is Grounded on Two Truths

Unless the Truths are Dealt with, The Damage may be Irreversible

Hello All,

I started writing this piece, but it has become apparent that it needs two sections (one lie each). The second section will be released in the coming days—and will also discuss possible solutions. What I have decided to do, because of the length, is make this one free to all readers, but I will make the other for paying subscribers.

Did you know that Melania Trump was the greatest documentary film maker in history? Its true. Forget Ken Burns, Alex Gibney or Werner Herzog—they are not in Melania’s league. You want proof? Well, Amazon just paid a staggering $40 million just to have the ability to broadcast a documentary about her life that she will produce. That $40 million doesn’t even allow them to own the documentary outright, that would obviously be cripplingly expensive considering her cinematic and production brilliance. No, that just gets them the ability to show it to all of their Prime subscribers (who I am sure wont be able to rest until it is broadcast).

Of course maybe she isn’t one of the greatest masterminds of our, or any, age. Maybe that $40 million is not a payment for her cinematic or business genius, but a way of gaining favor in other ways? Certainly, any family would stand up and take notice if a company like Amazon paid them $40 million. And other members of the Trump family have also been paid exorbitant sums for their genius in areas for which they have established no discernible expertise. Jared Kushner has been given $2 billion by an investment fund run by the Saudi government. Interestingly, Kushner seems to have done almost no investing to merit this enormous amount of capital. As the New York Times reported in September 2024.

The private equity firm run by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump, has been paid at least $112 million in fees since 2021 by Saudi Arabia and other foreign investors, even though as of July it had not yet returned any profits to the governments largely bankrolling the firm.

These kinds of massive infusions of wealth with little discernible return for the investor naturally leads to questions. Could they actually be payments for influence over Trump, to show gratitude or curry favor? Well, your guess is as good as mine. And needless to say they have prompted a number of questions (though actually depressingly few considering the sums involved).

For those of us who are resolutely opposed to what MAGA is doing to the United States these are blows upon bruises. Depressing beyond belief, but in no way surprising as they are occurring so repeatedly. MAGA has built much of their power into a large, castle of lies, stretching from money, to history, to personality, to religion. The rewriting of the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol and attempt to shut down the lawful election of Joe Biden as president might be the most obvious—but it is hardly alone.

And yet, I’m old. When I heard the story of Melania’s lucrative deal, there was a little voice in the back of my head speaking the lines of Benjamin the old donkey in Animal Farm. When I read that book as a teenager, I remember finding Benjamin to be distinctly unnerving. Animal Farm is a retelling of the Russian Revolution in parable form. It details the collapse of revolutionary idealism into oppression and barbarity. Benjamin watched it all with a sense of weary detachment, neither happy when the revolution first occurred nor surprised or even bothered when it descended into dictatorship and oppression. As he said in the face of such tumult:

“life would go on as it always had gone on - that is, badly.”

The First Truth: Presidents have become Increasingly Brazen in their Cashing-In on the Office.

And what is Benjamin saying? That what Trump is doing might be monstrous, but it is merely an exaggerated and more open form of what we have been seeing in US (and European) politics over the last 50 years. For 50 years presidents on both sides of the aisle have been cashing in from countries and donors for whom they have done favors—in an increasingly naked way. Moreover, it has been a practice shared by presidents from both sides of the aisle.

Now financial corruption has a long history in the United States. The 19th century, for instance, saw massive sums go into the coffers of political machines. If you are ever in lower Manhattan, its worth it to go visit the old New York County Courthouse (nicknamed the Tweed Courthouse—after Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall). Built in the 1860s, it cost around $13 million, many times more than it should have—due to the fact that there was so many kickbacks and payoffs associated with its construction. To put that figure in context—it was twice the amount that the US government paid at the same time to purchase all of Alaska.

The Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan—yours for the price of two Alaskas

And there were definitely corrupt senior politicians at the time. Many senators became suspiciously wealthy in the Gilded Age, often working extremely closely with business interests. These include Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island—who worked hand in glove with the sugar industry and became wealthy.

That being said, there was also a surprising amount of probity also shown by senior politicians. And, crucially, US presidents in the Gilded Age were not a particularly financially corrupt or even successful bunch—and many lived quite simple lives after leaving office. Ulysses S. Grant, for instance, lost all his money after leaving office in a failed investment scheme, and had to write his memoirs furiously while dying of throat cancer, to leave his family some funds.

President Ulysses Grant, working desperately to finish his memoirs while dying—he would expire a few weeks after this picture was taken.

In the last 50 years, however, there has been a noticeable shift. Presidents of both parties have moved quickly and usually very successfully to enrich themselves after leaving office. Indeed, cashing in on the presidency has become more the norm than the exception. I remember back in 1989, just after Ronald Reagan left office, being rather depressed hearing that he had accepted $2 million (worth approximately $5 million today) for a short trip to Japan—paid for by a Japanese company. It was part of a process of him seeming to cash in on the prestige of his presidency.

Of course what Reagan did would seem quaint only a few years later. When Bill Clinton left office, he seemed to embark on an orgy of money making. He made $25 million in fees/honoraria in his first year out of office. Since then he seems to have made almost $200 millions in speaking fees, publishing contracts and the like.

Nor is it just the Presidents themselves cashing in on their positions (and who knows getting rewards for actions they took while in office). Family members also have done very well. There is the basic fact that the US set up a repeating Bush-Clinton presidential election contest between 1988 and 2016—with younger members of the family actually trying to enter politics since. This is not the sign of a healthy democracy.

Moreover, the family members of Presidents seem to do very well indeed. When George HW Bush died in 2018 he had a net worth of $25 million—while the Bush family had a net worth of over $400 million. And they had parlayed the Bush name into TV jobs, political careers, business links, etc.

Hunter Biden, also, seems to be a person with about the same talent set as Melania Trump (or even less to be honest). And yet, he was able to get many millions of dollars in fees, while a regular user of crack. From 2011 to 2018 (during most of which his father was Vice-President of the USA), Biden seems to have received $11 million from different “business” ventures, and at the same time his ex-wife said there was strong evidence that he was regularly using crack.

In other words, in the decades before Trump, the US was seeing its former presidents cashing in to the tune of tens or even hundreds of millions, with their family members also sticking their noses into the troughs.

Btw, a very similar bipartisan process of cashing is has become the norm in Europe too. From Tony Blair who made £20 million in just a few years after leaving office, to Nicolas Sarkozy, Gerhard Schroder and Boris Johnson (and there are many others) European leaders have done very well from their positions of power. It helps explain the rise of Viktor Orban—he is taking the corruption already endemic in the systems and magnifying it beyond polite boundaries.

And this is the first truth on which MAGA can then build its castle of lies. What Trump is doing is taking the already existing unseemly trends in the American system and magnifying them, making them more naked and much more lucrative. His changes are ones of a massive inflation of an existing system, he is not creating a completely new one out of thin air.

The same goes for the second truth. With this MAGA is also taking what was a growing issue in American life, and amplified it to a massive extent…