Electoralism/Democratism

How to Buy a President

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Today’s story is really two articles in one. The first is a thoroughly reported — and deeply funny — narrative of the founding of Donald Trump’s media company. (It’s exactly as competent and lawful as you’d expect from a pack of toadies and venture capitalists trying to make a buck off Trump in the months after his followers stormed the Capitol in 2001. My favorite part is Melania’s wisecrack when her husband suggests naming his social network “Truth.”) The second part of the story concerns what has happened since this farce of a company went public in March. Many investors are convinced that the stock has a true value of zero, but others are bidding up its price as a way of betting that Trump will return to the White House. Its market cap stands at nearly $6 billion. If Trump is reelected and retains his multibillion-dollar stake in office, the possibilities for corruption are mind-boggling. This dynamic, in which Trump’s company has been a comic sideshow but also poses genuine constitutional danger, has been playing out under the radar this year. Our writer David Freedlander puts it all together in a compulsively readable way.

—Nick Summers, features editor, New York

How to Buy a President Donald Trump’s joke of a media company is also a $6 billion meme stock — and an unprecedented opportunity for corruption.

Photo-Illustration: Pablo Delcan
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