I have often remarked that Donald John Trump does not give a rip about anyone but himself and that his raison d’être is to rob you blind. Since resuming office, he has hastened to prove those points by aligning himself with a grasping band of domestic and international elites who, like him, are the living embodiment of self-dealing and government corruption. His campaign blather about being the champion of downtrodden working people was, as even his most ardent supporters must finally understand, exactly that: blather.
As American citizens scramble to find affordable housing, affordable healthcare, affordable energy, affordable transportation, and affordable food to keep their children from starving, our commander in chief and his entire cabinet appear to be having one big “Let them eat cake” lollapalooza. Nine months in, the imperial bacchanal is well under way. Whether they are living la dolce vida or la vida loca may be a matter of debate, but they are certainly whooping it up. They seem perfectly happy to party while Rome burns; after all, they lit the match and continue to fan the flames.
Trump’s obvious lack of concern for the struggles of his constituents leads one to believe that he is having, at last, the Louis XVI moment for which he has longed since riding down the golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, making sure to savage immigrants before announcing his political candidacy.
His wife Milania seems happy to occupy the role of Marie Antoinette—for whom among us can forget her visit to the southern border during Trump’s first administration, in order to view for herself the disgusting spectacle of children in cages crying piteously for their parents. For that royal visit, she attired herself in a designer jacket with a message stenciled on the back: “I Really Don’t Care. Do You?”
Of course, we already knew that she really did not care. Her signature imperiousness made it abundantly clear. Announcing it on the back of her jacket was unnecessary, but it certainly crystalized her lack of concern for those who would only be allowed to enter Mar-a-Lago through the servants’ door as underpaid guest workers.
Let them eat cake, indeed.
So, while you were trying to figure out whether you had enough money to put gas in your car, FBI Director Kash Patel flew to Las Vegas on a $60 million government plane to have a date night with his girlfriend. Best part: You paid the tab.
While you were waiting in a miles-long queue at your local food bank, hoping that they would not run out of groceries before you got to the front of the line, Donald Trump was throwing a lavish Roaring Twenties “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago. Since Trump has never read anything apart from Adolph Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” he undoubtedly has no idea that at the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, Jay Gatsby is shot and killed by a man who believes that Gatsby molested his wife.
In addition to never reading anything, Trump is no historian. If he were, he would know that the Roaring Twenties ended in one of the biggest financial collapses America has ever seen, resulting in the Great Depression.
Pass the caviar, please.
While you were being evicted from your apartment for nonpayment of rent, Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the White House so that he could build himself a gilded ballroom. One wonders how he intends to dance the night away as blood pools around his ankles, but that is idle speculation. He wanted a ballroom, and now he gets one.
While your impoverished, elderly parents were losing their food assistance and Medicaid, Donald Trump was receiving an enormous gold crown from the government of Japan. Perhaps you can sell your own gold crown to help your parents stay alive.
Wait—you don’t have a gold crown? Well, whose fault is that?
While you were wondering if your holiday travel plans had been cancelled for lack of TSA workers and air traffic controllers, Donald Trump was receiving a luxury jumbo jet from the government of Qatar, currently being refurbished by the Pentagon with close to $1 billion of your tax money. Oh, and he is taking it with him when he goes, if we can ever figure out how to get rid of him.
While you were applying for unemployment because you were fired without cause by the Trump administration, he and his sons were collecting emoluments from foreign governments and multinational corporations to the cumulative tune of $3.4 billion.
While ICE agents were firing their weapons at you, beating you up, and placing you under arrest for documenting their brutality with your cell phone, several of Trump’s cabinet members were quietly moving into cushy homes on military bases so that they could shield themselves from your justifiable anger, and congressional Republicans authorized enhanced security for themselves.
They authorized a one-time payment of 20,000 of your tax dollars to each and every member of Congress to beef up security at their residences, along with ongoing payments of $5,000 per month for bodyguards, while your family created a GoFundMe page to underwrite your bail for the crime of filming the behavior of Trump’s Gestapo.
While they were punching you, zip-tying your hands, and dragging you into an unmarked van, Kash Patel installed a round-the-clock FBI SWAT team to provide security for his lounge singer girlfriend. While it is difficult to excavate the exact cost of a federal SWAT team, entry-level FBI agents make about $50,000 a year; if a “team” is made up of four agents, you are paying at least $200,000 a year to protect and defend Kash Patel’s side squeeze.
While you were begging the bank for a loan to pay an attorney to defend you from bogus DOJ charges stemming from the ham sandwich you threw at an ICE agent wearing combat gear, Donald Trump commanded the Department of Justice to pay him $230 million to sooth his indignation at having been righteously indicted for the laundry list of crimes committed during his first administration, before the Supreme Court decided to shield him from accountability forever. But the bottom line is that he just wanted $230 million. You really cannot blame him—who would not want the government to give them a big pile of money? Come on!
And while Donald Trump was creating a marble-clad lavatory with gold fixtures so that he could shower, shave, and relieve himself in a bathroom fit for an emperor, the roof of your modest home blew off in a tornado. What a shame that FEMA, the agency that formerly came running to assist after a natural disaster, has been dismantled by your champion.
So, now that we are living in an imperial kleptocracy, only one question remains:
Is there any cake left?
