Gilt Trip
All that glitters is not gold. Some of it is gold plated or merely gold paint. Included among the many ways America has been changed in the first few months of Trump 2.0 is the transformation of the White House into a gilt complex. “Lately the American president has been spending quite a bit of time redecorating the Oval Office. The results can only be called a gilded rococo hellscape. If our leader’s appearance is a depiction of the country … Is this us?” (After electing a guilty man into the highest office, sadly, the answer is yes. Call it gilt by association). Trump, whose style has been called dictator chic is obsessed with all things gold, from gold in the Oval Office, to the Golden Dome he hopes will protect America from incoming missiles, to ordering in his favorite food from the Golden Arches. The NYT (Gift Article) on the updated White House stylings that give new meaning to fool’s gold: All Hail Our Rococo President! “The most unusual additions to the office are two gilded mirrors that hang on either side of the fireplace. This is so quintessentially Mr. Trump that I’m surprised he didn’t think of it earlier. When standing in front of one, your reflection joins the pantheon of great leaders above you. It’s just like they say: In America anyone can grow up to become president.” (That adage used to be viewed as a positive.)
+ In the grand scheme of things, slapping a little gold plating on the White House walls isn’t a particularly big story. But it is connected to a very big one: our new transactional presidency, where everything has a price and no one is quite sure where the money is ending up. “Even seasoned practitioners of Washington pay-to-play have been startled by the new rules for buying influence. In December, a seat at a group dinner at Mar-a-Lago could be had for a million-dollar contribution to maga Inc., a super pac that serves as a war chest for the midterms. More recently, one-on-one conversations with the President have become available for five million. The return on investment is uncertain, a government-affairs executive told me: ‘What if he’s in a bad mood? You have no clue where the money is eventually going.’ Another lobbying veteran described the frank exchange as ‘outer-borough Mafia shit.'” Evan Osnos in The New Yorker: Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder.
+ “When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review. Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor?” NYT (Gift Article): As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests.
+ While there are plenty of big financial scandals, the small ones are nearly endless. Everything is for sale. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner. One assumes the dishes were gold plated.
