I’ve got a back-and-forth going with a few buddies. It’s basically, finish this sentence: “The markets hit record highs again as investors on Wall Street dismissed concerns about…” The responses generally go something like this: “Trump declaring Fed Chair Jerome Powell the clandestine head of Tren de Aragua and deporting him to Venezuela.”
It really is something. CNBC opened a recent piece with: “All three major indexes closed at record highs as investors moved past concerns about the state of the U.S. economy.” Hmm.
Wall Street continues to hit new highs as America reaches abysmal new lows. Trump keeps upping his despotic game — authoritarian paint by numbers— as CEOs hop to and heap praise. Bill Gates was among the latest. Yes. That Bill Gates. The guy who’s spent hundreds of billions to help people Trump goes out of his way to hurt. (One wonders if it has something to do with the Epstein files.)
A CEOs job is to make shareholders’ money. Lots of it. I’ve worked for many. I get it. I’m not a socialist, Democrat, or Republican. Technically, I’m now “unaffiliated.” Which is a euphemism for: you’re all useless.
But man. Just look at some of the CEOs who have buckled and bowed before Trump’s cankles. Beyond the inconvenient truth that jobs are disappearing and inflation is not, the broader indifference is brash.
Trump has relentlessly threatened Powell, whom he himself appointed, and tried to fire one of the Fed board’s governors on spurious charges; particularly given that Trump, his sons, and his company have been found liable for business fraud.
The Department of Labor releases a monthly jobs report. It’s grim. Trump doesn’t like it. So he fires the economist in charge; claims the numbers are rigged.
His “Big, Beautiful Bill” is a disaster. It buries Main Street under Wall Street. Americans hate it. Which is probably why Republicans are desperately trying to rebrand it.
Trump still thinks “tariff” is among the most beautiful words in the English language. Nobody else does. That includes yet another court that ruled his imposition of them to be illegal.
The current bull market is largely buttressed by a celestial belief in artificial intelligence — surging on the backs of companies like Nvidia. Of course, some, like Goldman Sachs, predict a few hundred million jobs could be “lost or degraded” globally by AI in the near future. So, there’s that.
Beyond the numbers things are pretty ugly in America. Trump is deploying the National Guard in American cities under the guise of fighting crime, but really in the spirit of spite and distraction.
He campaigned against the “weaponization of government” but has since turned government into his own private army — foisting the DOJ and FBI on anyone he believes has wronged him. No statute of limitations.
Trump hates it when the cool kids like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert laugh at him. So he keeps trying to fire them.
Courts, classrooms, newsrooms, and boardrooms. He’s got his chubby little fingers in all of it.
The Kennedy Center and Smithsonian, too. Why? He’s upset that the former never honored him with an award, and fears the latter goes overboard on Rosa Parks.
Trump, infamous draft dodger, even made West Point ditch an award for Tom Hanks. I guess “Band of Brothers” was too woke.
Civil discourse is a punchline. And we learn more each day about how Trump was formerly best friends with a sex-trafficking pedophile.
Further yonder, the Middle East is a tinder box. There’s a genocide in Gaza. Ukraine is under siege as NATO allies are on war footing not seen in decades. A formidable axis is forming with the likes of China, Russia, North Korea, and India — the leaders of whom have concluded Trump is an unserious moron and play him as such.
Really, the leaders of the world, democratic or despot, don’t like, respect, trust, or fear Donald Trump. He has an almost paranormal alacrity for making a fool of himself — of our country. But they need him. He may be the insecure bully all the school kids hate. Thing is, he’s got the best and biggest toys.
You might think his cabinet would reign him in. You’d be wrong. He meticulously assembled the most undistinguished and unqualified cabinet in history. A menagerie of sycophantic toadies, creeps, and degenerates.
Polls suggest it and eyes, ears, and common sense affirm it: things, the important things in America, are not good right now. Something big is going to break. And still, America’s leading CEOs — acutely aware of but idly ambivalent to it all — bow down so markets can soar up. Wall Street is giddy.
I’m all in on capitalism … but take a wild guess who’s likely to be left behind. Hint: they don’t have 401Ks.
Trump? His family has made billions. So too have his creepy golfing buddies and the gaudy Botox bunch at Mar-a-Lago. And don’t forget the crypto bros. And, of course, his new friends in the Middle East who gift him little baubles like, say, luxury jumbo jets.
Every exhausting day of his stale second act sustains a truism: Trump does for Trump. He ran for vengeance, retribution, relevance, self-enrichment, and to stay out of prison.
He’s helming the most transactional and corrupt presidency in history. The extortion. The quid pro quos. The guy commits an impeachable offense pretty much every fortnight — doesn’t even try and hide it.
Trump is aggressively burning it all down. But rest assured, the markets will probably remain up.
Ben Clarke is a communications consultant who began his career in Washington, D.C. He has written for political leaders across the globe and advised numerous Fortune 100 CEOs on messaging and strategy. He resides in his hometown of Greenfield.