It certainly looks as if policy is for sale in the Trump administration. After all, the president’s primary domestic policy deputy, Elon Musk, gained his position in the administration more or less by purchasing it: he is the richest man in the world, and the primary funder of Trump’s last presidential campaign, and it is seemingly by this virtue – does he have any others? – that Musk has been granted the authority to dismantle large swaths of the federal bureaucracy.
This is something of a pattern for Donald Trump. In his first term, it became de rigueur for foreign dignitaries to stay at Trump’s hotel on trips to Washington, a practice long perceived to be a way of currying favor with the president by spending money at his businesses. Trump funneled money to his hotel business from domestic sources, too: when Secret Service agents were required to stay at Trump’s hotels, they were charged exorbitant rates – including after he left office. Before their recent worldwide jaunt making deals with foreign governments and businesses that will financially benefit their father – including plans for a major new golf course in Qatar, built in partnership with a company controlled by the royal family – Trump’s sons launched $Trump, a cryptocurrency coin – that ever-popular scheme of shameless millennial grifters.
