Arc de Grift

Trump crowns himself in gold, Big Tech buys redemption, and the Fed prints confetti while the rest of us eat tariffs.

Good morning! Donald Trump’s long flirtation with the idea of “serving a little longer” hit the tarmac yesterday when he finally admitted, mid-Pacific, that the Constitution “doesn’t really allow” a third term. He sounded almost surprised, as if the 22nd Amendment were a zoning ordinance someone forgot to waive for him. The revelation came after weeks of red “Trump 2028” merch, fundraising emails about “unfinished business,” and a constitutional amendment drafted by the usual coterie of sycophants.

Speaker Mike Johnson, usually so pliable he could serve as a yoga prop said, “it’s not possible,” which in this administration counts as an act of courage. Trump’s pivot to respecting the law lasted about ten minutes, interrupted only by a monologue about “the people demanding it,” which sounded less like populism and more like a hostage note from inside his own skull. He may have surrendered the third term, but only to focus on the real legacy project: remaking America into a shrine of gold-plated vanity and corporate obedience.

Trump’s stop in South Korea unfolded like a tragicomedy of manners. The hosts, masters of managing volatile men, handed him a gold necklace and an oversized crown that looked like it was ordered from a Renaissance fair clearance sale. The optics were perfect: a reality-TV monarch receiving tribute from people too polite to laugh.

Trump, beaming like a gilded jack-o’-lantern, declared it “the most beautiful thing” and immediately tried to wear it. His speechwriters had prepared the usual praise for Korea’s “economic miracle,” but the real show came in the improvisations: random introductions of cabinet members mid-sentence, claims of $22 trillion in investment, and a rambling ode to his own greatness. Advisors reportedly looked on with expressions typically reserved for plane crashes.

Behind the polite applause, Seoul was livid. Hyundai workers detained in Georgia had sparked protests across South Korea, and the country’s president condemned the “trauma” inflicted on his citizens. Trump ignored it entirely, instead performing an unprompted impression of Narendra Modi, complete with fake accent and arm gestures, while CEOs stared at him like he’d just recited karaoke in Klingon.

By the end of the night, he was back to his favorite fairy tales: firing “100,000 bureaucrats,” defeating inflation with tariffs, and promising “21 or 22 trillion dollars” of new investment by sheer force of ego. The Koreans smiled, nodded, and poured another drink, diplomatic triage at its finest.

Back home, the president continued his personal war on beauty by firing every member of the Commission of Fine Arts, the century-old body tasked with making sure Washington doesn’t look like the lobby of a bankrupt casino. Their crime: opposing his $300 million White House ballroom and the proposed “Arc de Trump,” a golden monument he plans to wedge near Arlington Bridge.

Trump described his vision as “America’s answer to the Arc de Triomphe,” except this one will feature a gold Lady Liberty perched on top because subtlety is for losers. He insists the arch could be “small, medium, or large,” before adding, “I happen to like the large one,” as if ordering fries. The East Wing has been decimated, donor-funded and poll-defying. Two-thirds of Americans hate the idea, but Trump remains determined to turn the capital into the world’s most expensive pawnshop.

The White House promises new commissioners “aligned with America First Policies,” which is bureaucratic code for people who think Versailles needed more gold leaf. The administration has finally solved Washington’s art problem by outlawing taste.

If Trump’s aesthetic instincts are vulgar, his financial ones are apocalyptic. A new trove of reports from September’s Big Tech dinner confirms what everyone suspected: the supposed populist warrior against Silicon Valley has become its concierge. The scene looked like a billionaire potluck, Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai, all gathered to praise the man who once called them “enemies of the people.”

Trump beamed, calling it “a high IQ group,” which in Trumpian math means “donated more than a million dollars.” Each of those companies indeed ponied up seven-figure checks to his inaugural fund, the largest in U.S. history: $240 million in corporate donations, nearly 800 donors, and zero rules about how the money is spent. Meta’s investigations vanished, Google’s antitrust woes evaporated, Apple got tariff exemptions, Microsoft’s merger scrutiny dissolved, and Amazon’s FTC case quietly settled. Coincidence, of course, just capitalism at work, lubricated by champagne and proximity.

And that’s just the tech table. The meatpacking giant Pilgrim’s Pride bought its way into deregulation with $5 million, winning the right to speed up poultry production while worker injuries soared. Chevron and ConocoPhillips chipped in a few million to reopen drilling in Alaska and Venezuela. NVIDIA donated a cool million and promptly regained permission to sell AI chips to China, so long as they share a 15% “patriotic revenue cut” with the U.S. government. It’s bribery with a bow on top, what one economist called “a system of patronage wrapped in deregulation.”

Even Boeing got its absolution. After years of criminal negligence over fatal 737 crashes, the company avoided prosecution, paid a billion-dollar fine, and secured a $50 billion defense contract, proof that in Trump’s America, accountability is a sliding scale measured in campaign checks.

The Federal Reserve is poised to cut rates again, desperate to disguise a contracting economy under a fresh layer of “good news.” Trump insists that when he “announces good news,” the stock market should go up, his own version of monetary theory, somewhere between voodoo and vanity. Inflation remains at 3%, wages stagnant, prices rising, and yet Wall Street parties like it’s 1928.

Chair Jerome “Too Late” Powell, whom Trump publicly mocks at least twice a week, warns of “no risk-free path.” Translation: the train is on fire, but the conductor still insists it’s running on time. As layoffs roll through Amazon, Tesla, and Google’s contractors, Trump hails the chaos as “efficiency.” The market agrees, because the market no longer requires people to make money.

Yesterday’s announcement of Amazon’s new round of layoffs turned thousands of workers into data points for shareholder optimism. Executives say the cuts will “position Amazon for AI-led growth,” which roughly translates to “robots don’t ask for health insurance.” The same week, Meta quietly froze salaries, and Microsoft reclassified thousands of contractors as “temporary,” a euphemism for replaceable.

It’s a perfect illustration of Trump’s gold-leaf economy: the stock market hits record highs while the average American pawns their wedding ring to pay rent. The president who boasts of “lifting 600,000 people off food stamps” is simply yanking away the ladder, then posing for a photo on top of the cliff.

In California, SNAP recipients have filed a lawsuit accusing state agencies of unlawful suspensions during the shutdown, leaving thousands without food assistance while Trump’s donors feast at state dinners. It’s a fitting metaphor for the new America, where billionaires buy policy with party favors and the hungry are told to learn to code before they starve.

The so-called “peace” in Gaza remains a smoldering fiction: over 100 Palestinians killed overnight, nearly half of them children, as Israel resumes its campaign under U.S. cover. Trump and JD Vance insist the ceasefire is “holding,” perhaps mistaking the word for “collapsing.” The humanitarian crisis deepens, but the White House’s only architectural concern seems to be how tall the Arc de Trump should be.

So here we stand at the edge of another gilded dawn: a president planning monuments to himself, a government auctioned off to its own donors, and an economy whittled down to numbers on a screen. Trump calls it “the rebirth of American greatness.” Economists call it a feedback loop of corruption, speculation, and starvation. Tomorrow’s forecast: partly fascist with a chance of layoffs.

And on a brighter note, the ginormous bandage comes off today, meaning I can finally type with all ten fingers again instead of nine and an index finger impersonating a flipper. Marz and I plan to celebrate this momentous return to full typing capacity with a well-earned romp under the rare, cloudless sky along the Southern Oregon coast. The sun’s out, the surf’s steady, and for at least one glorious afternoon, we’ll leave the madness of gold arches and tariff tantrums behind.