Dem
47
GOP
53
We have observed, several times, that when you've got a president who is clearly open to bribes, people and corporations will find a way to get that done. We had an item on that very subject last week, as crypto entrepreneur (and banana lover) Justin Sun found a way to give the Trump family $16.5 million.
This is going to be another item on that very subject. One of the griftiest loopholes in American politics is the inauguration committees, wherein corporations and individuals are allowed to make large, poorly monitored donations to an incoming president. This particular opportunity is only going to present itself once, however, and so various entities suspected to be on Donald Trump's "enemies list" are hustling to pony up. Like, say, Amazon.
There are, of course, many ways that Donald Trump could hurt Amazon. There are even more ways that Trump could hurt Amazon's founder and biggest shareholder, Jeff Bezos, whose other company—Blue Origin—has contracts with the government, and aspires to have more. Yesterday, Amazon announced that it would be giving $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, and would livestream the inauguration as well, a service valued at an additional $1 million. It should be noted, in the interest of completeness, that Amazon made the same offer to Joe Biden in 2020. After all, whether an incoming president is or is not grifty, it's still good to be on their "nice" list come January 20. Biden accepted the livestreaming, but did not take the money, due to a policy of not accepting donations from Big Tech.
Also writing a $1 million check to Trump's inaugural committee is Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Meta, and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, also don't want the President-elect to make trouble for them. In particular, they do not want ANY federal regulation of social media. Zuckerberg also has some personal skin in the game, as Trump has threatened to imprison him and Trump's acolytes have threatened to do even worse (e.g., force him to attend a Bears game and stay until the very end). Anyhow, in addition to the donation, Zuckerberg made a visit to Mar-a-Lago to dine with the emperor and bow before the throne.
Let us be clear here, we understand exactly why these people are making the choices they are making. We don't admire their lack of spine, and their determination to make certain that they will always have 10,000 times more money than any person could ever spend, but we do understand it. (Z)