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Weather: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Mostly sunny, with a high near 88. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Monday Night: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 74. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets at 4:30 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast. The meeting of the seven-member board is open to the public.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway in 2025. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
Notebook: William H. McNeill was one of those great historians who, like Herodotus, like Vico, like Voltaire, saw in the mingling of civilizations not the “clash” that Samuel Huntington saw, but the only way to a more enlightened future. He also believed in world history as a discipline at a time–the 1980s and since–when specialization has so atomized the field as to make it unintelligible to the lay reader, with some rosewater exceptions of the David McCullough kind. My late and second father turned me on to him in 1986 on the eve of my exile from New York for Chapel Hill, where I was to do my graduate work in history and discover that my professors had only contempt for a student intent on journalism. Mythistory and Other Essays was the small McNeill bible I carried. I started rereading it the other day. It was like opening a 40-year-old bottle of Veuve-Clicquot and still hearing the champagne sparkle. Then I came across these lines: “Future historians are unlikely to leave out Blacks and women from any future mythistory of the United States, and we are unlikely to exclude Asians, Africans, and Amerindians from any future mythistory of the world. One hundred years ago this was not so. The scope and range of historiography has widened, and that change looks as irreversible to me as the widening of physics that occurred when Einstein’s equations proved capable of explaining phenomena that Newton’s could not.” McNeill died in July 2016. He was 98. Assuming he still had his faculties, he probably thought Clinton was about to get elected, and his prediction would hold true. He was professionally mistaken in one regard: he believed in progress. (I don’t know how anyone familiar with the history of Christianity and its thousand-year reign of willful, studied, scholastic ignorance, can still believe in progress.) He could not have imagined the hands of Trump, DeSantis, Renner and Ruffo on the history syllabus. But what have they been doing that the Catholic church did not do for fifteen hundred years?
—P.T.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
October 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Flagler Beach All Stars Beach Clean-Up
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Sunshine and Sandals Social at Cornerstone
‘Avenue Q,’ at City Repertory Theatre
‘Nunsense,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre
‘Sweeney Todd’ at Athens Theatre
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
‘Nunsense,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre
Al-Anon Family Groups
‘Avenue Q,’ at City Repertory Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
In its assault on the past Christianity had help from others with a similar lack of interest in high classical civilization: Huns, Goths, Visigoths and others – the ‘barbarians’ – whose migrations and invasions into the ever-weakening Roman Empire hastened its collapse.* The shrinking of mental and cultural life was both a cause and an effect of diminishing education; fewer books were written and published, prohibitions were imposed on what could be read and discussed, and the predictable consequences of such circumstances followed in the form of increasing ignorance and narrowness. Christianity congratulates itself on the fact that the preservation of fragments of classical literature which managed to scrape through this period of appalling destruction was the achievement of monks, in later centuries, copying some of the manuscripts that survived; and although this was a merely partial, belated and inadequate response to the wanton zealotry of the earlier faithful, one must be grateful even for that.
–From A.C. Grayling’s The History of Philosophy (2019).
Dennis C Rathsam says
Keep dreaming, all you jackasses, TRUMPS alive & well. He,s ready to lead America to the promise land! Promises made, promises kept. It took TRUMP less than a week to stop the bloodshed, murder,carjackings, & crime in our nations capital! He,s cleaning out the mess & failures of the democrats here. 77 million people voted to take our country back from dispare, violence, & the desicration of America. Things are looking better all the time, cashless bail will be a thing of the past! You do the crime You do the time. You see the other party doesn’t get it, if it involves TRUMP, Its a bad idea. So take to the streets & protest his help. It’s only prooves how ignorant you are, living with the fear 24/7, let the gangs control your destiny,while the democrat appruval rating sits at 19%! Look close you’ll see the tears in the donkeys eyes….He,s never been so sad!
Pogo says
@Are questions entertained?
… since its own Golden Age (stipulated: the Renaissance and Enlightenments’ debt is beyond reckoning)?
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+has+islam+contributed+since+its+golden+age
Or any religion; and let us not leave off those whose religion is no religion.
What of this?
https://www.google.com/search?q=non+christian+ages+of+conquest
A keyhole — and key — unlocks the universe, the keyhole alone is a poor window on even a closet.
Jim says
I think Trump’s chances of living 3-1/2 more years are near zero. That said, MAGA ought to be worried about post-Trump world. JD Vance will be the next president. You can watch and listen to him and tell he knows his time is coming and he can barely contain his excitement.
And that’s good for America because JD Vance has the interpersonal skills of Randy Fine and shares a lot of his positions and that’s great. A small sample of JD’s most recent musings to the world…..
“Published Sep 07, 2025 at 9:54 AM EDT by NEWSWEEK
On Saturday, September 6, Vance wrote on X, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” Brian Krassenstein, a social media personality and podcaster known for his anti-Trump views, responded to Vance’s post and said, “Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime.” Vance then replied, “I don’t give a s*** what you call it.” [Senator from Kentucky Rand] Paul’s criticism came following this. Writing in a post on X in response to Vance, he wrote, “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
As you can see, JD is so tone-deaf that even Rand Paul couldn’t stomach his chest beating! If ol’ JD can’t stay in line with his own kind, I seriously doubt he’s going to do well with most Americans! So, MAGA, buckle up and get ready for post-Trump. It’s coming and it doesn’t look pretty (for you!)!!
Sherry says
Take a look at “Banksy’s” latest in London . . . it also belongs here in the US! I’m thinking on the Supreme Court building:
https://apnews.com/article/banksy-mural-london-royal-courts-justice-c08b2cef093ea6a0520302eacfbd871f
Ray W. says
Thank you, once again, Mr. Tristam, for your sharing of the insights of so many thinkers such as A.C. Grayling.
I have long argued on this site that it has to have been some sort of extraordinary confluence of events for Aeschylus’ Oresteia, sometimes called the three plays of Agamemnon to have survived the 1600 years or so from their initial publication to when English priests found copies of them in the libraries of Damascus and brought them back to England during the Third Crusade.
The Oresteia contains a description of the first known instance of a jury trial, even if it depicts a mythical jury trial, with Orestes being prosecuted by the Furies and defended by Zeus before 12 Athenian jurors.
There has long been a movement among legal historians that holds that the reintroduction of the Oresteia into Western thought in 1193 gave rise to the 1215 Magna Carta, giving English people a limited right to a jury trial.
Skibum says
Hey Dennis… despite your proclamation to the contrary, your pedophile loving, dictator wanna-be prez is NOT Moses! He’s not leading America anywhere except off an economic cliff! But you and all the other maga misfits continue to adore and follow him, and will do so right into oblivion. Now do you know why people like you are called SHEEPLE?
Ray W. says
After last Friday’s BLS release of its monthly paychecks report, a number of news outlets adopted the idea that the Fed will lower its lending rate by a quarter point, at the very least.
Most of the stories hold that it is difficult for an economist to argue that 22,000 new workers earning paychecks is a good thing, particularly when the same report reflects 12,000 fewer manufacturing jobs from the total of just a month before.
Some reporters quote economists as saying that there now is a near 100% likelihood of that outcome. The economists argue that the long-term slowing, or weakness, in the labor market has finally come to the point that the weak labor numbers will precipitate the Fed’s decision.
But the Fed doesn’t meet until the middle of next week. And this week will see the release of two more very important economic surveys, the producer price index and the consumer price index.
It is no secret that various Fed officials, including Fed Chair Powell, have cited to inflation as the primary driver of its decision-making, re: lending rates.
Time after time, various voting members to the Federal Open Markets Committee have gone on record as saying that the labor market side of their dual-mandate to manage the economy and create jobs has not been a big part of their considerations because the labor market has been so strong for so many consecutive years since the impact federal response to the onset of the pandemic.
So buckle up and hold on. Economic movements and undercurrents, both national and international, seem to be coming into focus.
But I cannot forget that the American economy is so complex in scope and massive in size that it is difficult to for even the most brilliant among us to predict where it will all turn out.
Few economists understood at the time of its initiation in 2008 that the Shale Revolution would revolutionize the American oil and natural gas industry as much as it did.
Few economists understood at the time of the emergence of the Pandemic of late 2019 that it would impact the American economy as much as it did.
And I submit that few economists today understand the coming economic impact of AI.
Ray W. says
CNN just dropped an article about the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Here are a few bullet points from the story:
– Since the pandemic, the labor component of the American manufacturing sector reached a peak in February 2023. Ever since, the sector has been on a “downward” trend. Last month, the sector lost 12,000 more jobs. In 2025 alone, the American manufacturing sector has dropped some 78,000 jobs through August.
– Separate from manufacturing jobs losses, an Institute for Supply Management report for August reflects a contraction in manufacturing economic activity for the sixth consecutive month.
– Ron Hetrick, a senior economist with Lightcast, a labor markets analytics company, told the reporter:
“There’s no good reason for manufacturing to be hiring right now, and there are a lot of good reasons for it to be taking it easy.”
So what does the reporter list as the reasons?
– Per Mr. Hetrick, as written by the reporter, “[h]igher interest rates, meant to ease inflation by cooling economic activity, also play a role.”
– There has been a long-term trend of increased manufacturing efficiencies. Said Chad Syverson, professor of economics at the University of Chicago:
“As you get better at making manufactured product – that is productivity growth – you don’t need as many people to make the same things you did before.”
– Uncertainty arising from President Trump’s tariff policies have some companies pausing hiring until they “have a better picture of how tariffs will impact pricing.” Said Syverson:
“We know nothing reduces investment quite like a bunch of uncertainty, especially in regard to policy. … And to say that we’ve had uncertainty in policy for the past several months is a massive understatement.”
– “A decline in consumer confidence has manufacturers questioning production plans.”
– And the “crackdown on immigration means fewer workers on factory payrolls.”
One of the respondents to the ISM survey told the surveyor:
“‘Made in the USA’ has become even more difficult due to tariffs on many components. … The administration wants manufacturing jobs in the U.S., but we are losing higher-skilled and higher-paying roles. With no stability in trade and economics, capital expenditures spending and hiring are frozen. It’s survival.” The respondent said that his company, one that makes electrical equipment, appliances and components, has already increased prices, in the reporter’s words, “24% to offset tariffs and let go about 15% of its workforce — including engineering and IT roles.”
– According to the reporter, the respondent was not alone. For every positive survey response about “new orders” coming in to manufacturers, as reflected by a New Orders Index that was positive in August, after six straight months of negative new orders, there were 2.5 responses indicating concern about “near-term demand.”
– The president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Scott Paul, told the reporter that while some manufacturers will take a hit from higher input costs due to tariffs others will benefit from tariffs.
So what of the future?
– “Manufacturing job growth will hinge on just how many companies decide to shift production to the United States,” wrote the reporter.
There is evidence that such a shift is underway. Per the White House website: More than $8 trillion in new investments are “creating hundreds of thousands of new, good-paying jobs for Americans,” though the reporter found from a USA Today article that some of that $8 trillion in the White House’s claimed investment figure actually predated the Trump administration.
– According to a report issued by the Yale Budget Lab, today’s average effective tariff rate is 17.4%, the highest it has been since 1935.
According to the reporter, looking into the Yale report, even that 17.4% average effective tariff rate might not be high enough to bring manufacturing into the U.S., at least not at “meaningful” levels. Without significantly more net new capital investment, according to the Yale report, “[e]ven if current tariff policy sticks, a full rebound in manufacturing employment looks hard-pressed.” The reason? Input costs.
Since tariffs raise input costs on products such as raw materials for manufacturers, and since manufacturers on average import nearly one-third of their “intermediate inputs”, according to a 2022 Commerce Department report, then increased input costs brought on by tariffs can “squeeze” company budgets, “making hiring more difficult.”
According to Teresa Fort, Dartmouth associate professor of business administration, specializing in international trade:
“If you make the inputs more expensive for a firm, their prices are going to go up. And if their prices go up, people will buy less. And if people are buying less, you’re going to use less workers.”
What to make of all of this?
Is it accurate to argue that companies planning to either move manufacturing to the U.S. or planning to expand new manufacturing here need long-term price stability in policy? Is it accurate to argue that tariffs do not necessarily offer that sort of long-term price certainty? Is it accurate to argue that a tariff designed to present a favorable domestic manufacturing environment to a foreign manufacturer needs to be targeted so that input costs for raw materials or for sub-components do not rise so much that the benefits of moving here are offset by the negatives of moving here?
As one FlaglerLive commenter put it: President Trump is playing chess when others are playing checkers. I have argued ever since that the commenter might be correct. It has been 80 years since America installed tariff rates as high as they are today. No economist alive has an economic model that offers any semblance of predictability for tariff rates this high. We are all stumbling about in the dark.
But what if President Trump is actually playing with fire? What if he isn’t playing chess? What if nation’s all over the world are working on changing their supply chains to exclude America from their economic calculations?
From 2023-2024’s soybean harvest, China bought over $13 billion worth of soybeans from American farmers. As of earlier this week, Chinese buyers have ordered zero soybeans from the 2025-2026 harvest. Instead, Chinese soybean buyers have ramped up purchases from Brazilian farmers. A Chinese company is renovating a Brazilian port to more than triple Brazilian soybean exports from that one port. Once a nation loses agricultural market share to another nation, it is not so easy to win back the lost share.
India’s Prime Minister Modhi, whose government refutes President Trump’s claim that he settled India’s war with Pakistan, was seen holding hands with China’s Premier Xi at a joint meeting that also included North Korea’s Kim and Russia’s Putin and Iran’s Pezeshkian. Why in the world is the leader of one of our strongest democratic allies in the region meeting with four neighboring autocrats or outright dictators, something that has never happened before?
Ray W. says
According to a CNN story about the Bureau of Labor Services and the methodology on which it’s monthly paychecks report relies, the reporter made the following points:
Under the heading, “What is the BLS?”:
– The BLS, dating from its inception in 1884, is “an independently operated body within the U.S. Department of Labor. Its commissioner is appointed by the Senate.
– The BLS employs some 2000 people, “including a number of economists and survey takers. The surveyors contact businesses and individual workers. The economists analyze the data procured by the survey takers and produce reports from the data.
– The survey takers focus on “prices, inflation, productivity, spending, pay, workplace injuries, employment and unemployment.”
Under the heading, “How does the BLS collect job data?”:
– There are two separate BLS surveys:
– One survey involves door-to-door contact. Surveyors obtain from those contacted their employment status and demographic information.
– The second survey, called the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey involved telephonic and internet surveys for “thousands of businesses and government agencies.” For larger companies, an automated data transfer suffices. Surveyors obtain monthly employment levels and hours worked and earning paid from payroll records.
Under the heading, “What does the BLS do to the data?”:
– Economists “edit” the data to spot “processing and reporting errors.” If the editing spots an error, the companies or individuals are contacted to clarify the data.
– From the corrected data, BLS economists prepare an estimate of hours worked and money earned, on top of an estimate of the level of American employment. Since not every minor hamlet of the country is surveyed, economists, using seasonal hiring trends, engage in a form of educated guesswork to avoid spikes and dips in the monthly data. Different from the seasonal hiring trends, economists use other seasonal adjustments to further smooth out the monthly data.
– The raw data and the initial estimates are preserved and processed through further statistical tests to protect the data.
– The BLS commission does not see the month’s estimates until it is deemed completed. According to President Trump’s first-term BLS commissioner, William Beach, “protocols at the agency prevented its leader from manipulating the data.”
Under the heading, “What is in the BLS’s jobs report?”:
– Most commonly, on the first Friday of each month, the BLS releases its “Employment Situation Summary”, which is generated from the data from the two surveys. Within each monthly summary are revisions to the two previous summaries.
Under the heading, “Why is that data revised?”:
– “The data is revised several times: in each of the two months following the initial report, a preliminary annual revision in August and a final annual revision in February.”
– “The BLS considers its initial jobs numbers to be preliminary when they’re first published because some respondents fail to report their payroll data by the BLS’ deadline. Low survey reponses can make the report more challenging to estimate. But the BLS continues to collect the payroll data as it’s reported, and it revises the data accordingly.”
– “The data is also revised because of the seasonal adjustments. If the more complete data comes in well above or below the preliminary data, revisions can be exacerbated by the BLS’s seasonal adjustments, which sometimes need to be recalculated.”
Under the heading, “Were recent revisions abnormal?”:
– The monthly revision process was adopted in 1979. Between 1979 and 2003, the average monthly revision was 61,000 jobs, up or down. A “probability-based sample design” was introduced in 2003. Between 2003 and today, the average monthly revision was just over 51,000 jobs, up or down.
– The record monthly revision of 679,000 jobs occurred in March 2020, an event considered possibly a statistical anomaly because of “poor” survey responses during the nationwide lock-down. The highest non-pandemic revision occurred in January 2009, when the revision was 143,000 jobs.
– The record preliminary annual revision occurred in 2009, when the number of jobs adjusted by the revision was 902,000 for the year. The preliminary annual revision announced in August 2024 of 818,000 jobs for the year, which then-presidential candidate Trump called a “record” revision, a lie that laundered by one of our more gullibly stupid FlaglerLive commenters, Dennis C. Rathsam, who bitterly complained at the time that President Biden had been manipulating the data. Of course, Mr. Rathsam didn’t update FlaglerLive readers later on when the preliminary revision from August of 2024 was downgraded from 818,000 jobs to 589,000 jobs by the final revision in February 2025, an average revision of 49,000 per months, well within the average monthly revisions from 2003 to 2025. The BLS based the final annual revision of data gleaned from US tax returns, something unavailable under the monthly estimates.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
By now, every FlaglerLive reader must have picked up on the fact that no one can believe anything Dennis C. Rathsam types.
It cannot be argued too often that each month’s BLS labor summery is an estimate, based on incomplete, though statistically accurate, data. Over the next two months, the original estimate is revised as more data comes in. Twice each year, an annual estimate is prepared, once in August and the the next in February of the next year. Every month since 1979, the initial estimate has been revised up or down. Every year, the annual estimate has been revised up or down.
This past August, Mr. Beach, the former BLS commissioner under President Trump during his first administration, stated on CNN’s State of the Union program, aired each Sunday, that the “BLS is the finest statistical agency in the world, its numbers are trusted all over the world.”
Sick and sad says
Most are ignorant to how democracy works. It died and most people didn’t even notice, no bullets fired. Major protests happened but generally weren’t covered by the complicit media. Peaceful ways of change have been ineffective and corporate interests control political interests. Insider trading has profited the pedo 3.7 Billion in just a few months. But you should work those extra hours to pay those tarrifs on everything hahaha! Corrupt much?
Howard says
He’s definitely not playing chess. He has the competency of a toddler. He bankrupted every company he has ever“owned “. He’s a child predator. No American has ever lost more money than the orange dipshit per irs filings. This corruption dismantled our institutions and has allowed a fascist power consolidation that hasn’t happened in 100 years. Good things are not happening. The new Nazis won’t give up easily.
Ray W. says
Reuters reports that, yesterday, during an appearance on “Face the Nation”, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said:
“I would say 100% that monetary policy, Federal Reserve monetary policy, needs to be fully independent of political influence, including from President Trump.”
He added:
“The fact is that we’ve looked at countries that have allowed leaders to take over central banks, and what tends to happen is that it’s a recipe for inflation and misery for consumers.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Numerous stories on the issue of bending the policies of the Fed to presidential control mention the disastrous results flowing from political leaders taking control over central bank policies. Hassett tells of his study of these events. When Turkey’s president took control of its central bank, inflation skyrocketed. When Argentina’s president tool control of its central bank, inflation skyrocketed.
Ray W. says
Earlier today, according to Reuters, the federal Second District Court of Appeals declined President Trump’s argument that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision that extended criminal immunity to presidential acts also provided to him civil immunity from E. Jean Carroll’s civil actions; he claimed that failing to extend the limited immunity from criminal prosecution would undermine the independence of the Executive Branch of the federal government.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
For now, the $18.3 million in damages for Trump’s emotional and reputational harm to Ms. Carroll stands, as still stands the $65 million in punitive damages. A separate $5 million civil verdict still stands, too.
To be honest says
… Trump’s not much of a cartoonist.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/09/08/mosaic-v3-00trump-epstain-card-hp-955/mosaic-v3-00trump-epstain-card-hp-955-square640.png?quality=75&auto=webp
Just an opinion.
Ed P says
Sept 9 2025 Wall Street Journal US Economy
U.S. added over 900,000 fewer jobs than previously known
“Revised job numbers for 12 month period ending in March show significantly weaker labor picture than earlier reports showed. The pace of job growth was likely significantly weaker than reported from early 2024 through early this year.
The U.S. added 911,000 fewer jobs over the 12 months ended in March.”
Tuesday’s report is preliminary and part of the annual BLS updates .
The official revisions will come in February and may not be as negative.
When BLS made its official revision last February, the change was 598,000 fewer jobs when unadjusted for seasonal swings.
Begs to question other than a rough indicator, how reliable are the data points from where this information is being gleaned?
@Howard
Possibly the only true word in your entire post might be your name. Is it?
Sherry says
A “Must Read” . . . especially for those who are addicted to Fox. Just a small sample of the Epstein files trump and his sycophants have been trying to damned hard to hide from the public:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/09/politics/new-epstein-documents-takeaways
Sherry says
trump laughing all the way to the bank with Maga members money. . . Idiots!
This from the New Republic:
Late on the evening of January 17, when most presidents-elect are wholly focused on the immense task before them, Trump found the time to post a jolly advertisement on his Truth Social website:
“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”
Festooned with an image of him brandishing his fist and the words FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, which adorn the $TRUMP memecoin, the post directed supporters to a website where they could buy their very own—as hundreds of thousands promptly did. Within hours, the virtual token had gained a market capitalization of more than $7 billion; by early the following day, its sales price had soared by more than 500 percent, with a face price of $30 and a market value, on paper, of roughly $30 billion.
With the Trump Organization and its affiliates holding about 80 percent of the Trump meme coins (including a second token dubbed $MELANIA that also enjoyed a stratospheric launch over inaugural weekend), it seemed there would be no more scoffing about the billionaire status of the once (or twice, or six times) bankrupted real estate mogul. Suddenly Trump was inching closer toward the kind of incomprehensible wealth of a Buffett, a Gates … or a Musk.
The Trump coin quickly diminished in value, only to briefly rocket back up in late April when its website promised an “intimate private dinner” with the president for the top 220 coin buyers, and a “Special VIP” White House tour for the top 25 customers.
Yet the promotional materials and the astonishing early numbers posted by $TRUMP obscured the basic fact that this new memecoin, like most forms of cryptocurrency, has no inherent worth at all. It isn’t an actual coin, of course, and its virtual existence is nothing more than an opportunity for speculation. Nobody knew this better than Trump, who told Fox News years ago that he suspected cryptocurrencies “may be fake” and Bitcoin was “a scam” used by drug gangs, as well as a potential threat to the dollar and U.S. national security. But that was before his sons Eric and Donald Jr., both crypto enthusiasts, persuaded him that instead of being a crypto mark, he could become a digital pirate himself.
Trump learned what his elder boys meant in late 2022, when he made an initial foray into the blockchain economy online, shilling his own assortment of “non-fungible tokens,” or NFTs—a set of digital doodads that featured heroic images of him in comic-book style as an athlete, a soldier, and a superhero. So conspicuously trashy were these items (and Trump’s manic hawking of them) that even Steve Bannon protested. But Trump pocketed over a million dollars from their sale, even as their price eventually crashed and left other buyers at a loss.
On the eve of his ceremonial oath-taking, Trump’s crass display of greed appalled the nation’s leading crypto investors. Speaking off the record, some feared its impact on an industry that already wears a reputation for fraud, opacity, and criminality. “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this,” Nic Carter, a partner at a major crypto investment firm (and strong Trump supporter) told Politico. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the meme coin launch.”