Donald Trump excels himself (again)

Well, it's been a good while since I talked about Donald Trump. It's been nice. But I have to say he has excelled himself this time.

"Digital trading cards". Yup. What a concept! Digital trading cards featuring the mugshot of DJT in a variety of guises, from rugged cowboy to superhero to dapper businessman. And only $99 a pop (yes, that's dollars, not cents).

Featuring some rather poorly Photoshopped images of clothing and images apparently found online, they are being marketed as non-fungible tokens (NFT), and as limited-release digital art. The enterprise seems to be headquartered in a strip mall somewhere in deepest Utah, courtesy of an outfit called NFT INT LLC, which stresses that it is "not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump", and that it produces the images under paid license.

Trump himself, though, seems to love the concept and, after a "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" teaser on Truth Social, and a promotional video in which he also claims to be "better than Lincoln, better than Washington", he explains that "each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me". Well.

I guess you could give him some props for having a sense of humour about himself. But it's by no means clear how serious (or otherwise) he is being. It's one thing acting like a cartoon character, and entirely another thing doing so accidentally. The scheme has even moved Steve Bannon to mutter, "I can't do this!" I rest my case.

But here's the really depressing part: all 45,000 cards sold out in just 24 hours, raising $4.45 million for ... something.