Money For Nothing And Chicks For A Fee

     

    I believe we can relax with semi-high confidence that Trump will not be our next President. For a while now there has been much speculation about what he will do post Presidency to stay in the limelight, assuming of course he doesn’t go to prison. Many, including me, expect that he will try to monetize his popularity through some sort of public forum where the big spotlight will continue to shine on him 24/7.  I have no idea if he could run a media outlet and succeed but he seems to have a knack for making big bucks even off his many failures. I think there is an easier way to monetize his idiocy that would be orders of magnitude easier to set up and extremely cheap to run on an ongoing basis so wouldn't require big investors being ripped off in order to make a profit. It would almost certainly make a lot of money on the cheap. Consider that there are many Youtube channels and Patreon funded websites and Substack sights which are making big to very big money and most are founded and run by people you have never heard of and are about subjects you are not interested in. That is because of the power of big numbers. Following are some speculative figures estimating the money Trump might make with a Substak account where he could rant to his heart’s content as he pumped up his hardest core base.

    Based on rounded numbers, approximations, and guesses, here is what Trump might make on the side working in his spare time.  [These are “gross” figures in every sense of the word]

    Trump received 74,000,000 votes. Suppose 2% of that number would pay $5 a month for a subscription to Trump’s Substack. The gross income would amount to $7,400,000 a month or $88,800,000 a year. What will it finally cost us all before he finally goes away?

     

    Comments

    Obviously wouldn't cost "us all" anything - only them all/few.

    Yes, they can pay for his lawyers and what not. Then again, his maintenance money is small enough for Putin to keep covering.


    Thanks for the correction. It is really helpful. I guess the transition from "them" who would pay the $5 to the "us all",  which is the bigger group of Americans whom I expect to pay some price because of Trump being active in our society, even if not in direct voluntary payments, did not come across.  I will work on making my point in a simpler and more easily understandable way. 

    Edited to change the word "thought" In the second line to the word "guess".


    Presumably his influence will wane pretty quickly, however many people pay his way. Yesterday's model is yesterday's model, and without actual power, Trump's largely just a pain in the ass. As a rising star or holding on, he's worth something, especially with relative immunity. Out of office he'll be picking up so many residual lawsuits and indictments, he'll be truly toxic, whatever the effect of pardons he spreads around on his way down & out.

    Sure, his shit show between now and say March might be impressively awful, but unless by some miracle he actually maintains a more significant value than his waning support would warrant, he's dogmeat. Oh, he's also quite old, seems to have cognitive issues, and now he's post-Covid. Without "pres" before his name, more people may start to notice how odd he comes across, and how much worse it is than 4 years ago. Yes, it's often as bad as Hal unplugged in 2001. And it's going to get worse. He's roughly like bad AI programming, where he grabs snippets of previous speeches and mashes them together. Except there's less and less context. He can largely look backwards, but not much forwards - he doesn't process new information anymore, so he's basically left to cannibalizing old ideas. This will become increasingly awkward. Also, the amount his ego says "I" will stick out as that "I" has less importance. It's one thing to be the leader of the semi-free/now compromised world spouting forth. When you're an ex-pres bitching about your delayed luggage, no one really gives a fuck. Looking forward to a rather ugly untidy retirement.


    People are fickle and a lot of Trump's support came from his myth of being a winner. He's now a loser and many of the most popular myths, like QAnon, are now indisputably false. The scammers are going to find new bullshit to sell the gullible. I suspect his influence will wan quickly though he may maintain enough support to continue making money off his followers for years.

    eta: Already his supporters are dwindling after the SCOTUS ruling.

    The protests on Saturday drew thousands, many of them in red MAGA hats, but the crowd was much smaller than a November rally in D.C. shortly after the election.


    If/when his influence does wane he can join the Lincoln Project and go on Rachel Maddow's show and wow the crowd once again. There are opportunities everywhere.


    I tend to agree with everything PP said BUT THEN you make an excellent point--he has always done this--remember back in the day he was a librul and a Jesse Jackson best friend who wouldn't run unless Jesse dropped out. It would actually be YUGE RATINGS if he started dissing all his right wing fans, quoting Rachel Maddow, be the emcee of a show where they fight each other, throwing chairs while he's yelling at them that they are idiots. Kind of like the Morton Downey TV show of the 80's or like wrestling which he already went into once. Hey how old is Don King anyways?


    Here's a guy describing in detail in a long twitter thread some very Fellini-esque happenings today, inspired by Trump populism, but it's clear they no longer need Trump except as a symbol:

    There's some large guy onstage at the DC rally named "Shofar So Great" (https://t.co/rB4DIPCf1r) claiming to be an Orthodox Jew who says his rabbi in Israel gave him permission to break Shabbat to support Donald Trump and blow the shofar at the Jericho March.

    — Rod Dreher (@roddreher) December 12, 2020

    edit to add: isn't just about "Shofar the Great" but also characters like a shamanic Catholic priest, Fr. Bramlage, claiming to be exorcist, the My Pillow guy, Michael Flynn...renegade Archbishop Vigano addresses crowd by video! These charlatans are like Trump in that they all know how to hook a crowd. Just like Aimee Semple McPherson to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, it's all as American as apple pie.


    this video snippet from the above big shew is currently trending on twitter as "National Anthem"

    need I remind that "trending" = "ratings!" You don't have to like it for it to hook you.


    riveting "must see teevee", libruls can't get enough of the stuff:

    You get the drift, I rest my case.


    he could also do something like promote a sort of replacement for Comic Con, as it's grown rather tiresome after so many years:


    an alternate vision (make sure your sound is on) laugh

    edit to add: here's the direct link if the embed doesn't work for you

    https://www.tiktok.com/@chriscody8/video/69013481414


    Made me really think about it all from a new angle: how many supposed Trump fans would like the actual Donald Trump as a house guest? He's a symbol for them. If he doesn't keep that symbol up, he's toast. Cause he really is a sad, very sick person who gives a shit about other human beings.


    With the Palm Beach neighbors not digging the whole Mar O Lago homestead idea, it is time for Trump to consider the RV market.

    He and Melania could travel from one strange rally after another in a Winnebago.


    Melania is actually a more interesting case than the Donald. Barron will be 15. Clubbing will no doubt come back after coronavirus, but I doubt 50-something women will be that welcome. Nobody is going to want her line of designed or endorsed whatever?


    Tennis pavilions? Totally dope.

    And she can go on shows saying stuff like "F*$# the kids!" It'll be like a modern Rodney Dangerfield, where she drowns puppies or kicks midgets, and then she announces as the crowd recites with her: "I don't really care, do you?"

    *That's* Entertainment.


    Used to be coming out of the 80's was general this boomer networking thing, a sort of revision of Dale Carnegie's 
    "how to win friends and influence people". Then it quickly morphed into Tony Robbins' version of "to get rich is glorious" and suddenly there were a gazillion "inspirational speakers" to the point in the early 90's where SNL's Chris Foley developed a character who was one but a loser version who lived "in a van down by the river" and instead preached a cautionary tale of ending up like him. laugh

    I thought of all this when I saw this oldie but goodie video of Trump

    Donald Trump also said the USFL was “going to be around for a long time” and he was “going to win” his antitrust case. Trump lost (ok, he got $3 in damages) and the league folded. #TrumpKeepsLosing https://t.co/8oKNMcEy8H pic.twitter.com/GdM1us2PR4

    — Resist Programming (@RzstProgramming) December 26, 2020

    He kept doing the "believe it hard enough and it can be true" thing and losing, over and over and over and over...that's the grift, the whole thing, finding people who would maintain the delusion. TRULY is a loser.


    Latest Comments