As we approach the midterms, Trump has been making a lot of sudden “announcements” from the Oval Office intended to draw attention to his achievements, such as building a factory or — as it was today — auto-enrolling eligible children into his new “Trump accounts.” And with each announcement, the cast assembled around the desk seems to get a little stranger: an increasingly eclectic collection of people smiling encouragingly at the president as he reads from a laminated sheet of paper, printed in enormous type.
Today, we opened with a lot of expected bluster about how kids with these basic savings accounts could become “rich by the time they’re 18” if they choose to put money into it and then bet on the stock market, which they could do with literally any other savings account. The situation is a little different for the set of children born in the past two years, who will have $1,000 deposited directly into their accounts and sourced from rich entrepreneurs like Michael and Susan Dell, but it’s hardly revolutionary. It is, however, technically kind of socialist.
