‘Divided States of Corporate America’
Donald Trump likes to emphasize that his new $300 million, gold-plated ballroom is not being funded by taxpayer dollars, that 37 wealthy donors are providing the funding. Unlike most things that spill from his mouth, that is actually true.
Some of his biggest corporate donors: Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Comcast, Coinbase, Palantir (the AI company in the process of collecting every individual’s personal data), T-Mobile and HP. And then there are at least as many billionaire individuals and families.
The new ballroom, which will be even bigger than the White House, will serve exclusively as a gathering place for the country’s and the world’s richest and most elite people — the aristocrats, if you will. It will become the symbol of what America has been for decades, and now Trump is making it official: The Divided States of Corporate America, with a government that serves, first and foremost, the wealthy, the so-called winners of society, the capitalists with the most capital, while treating the masses like indentured servants and mindless, dependent consumers. Most Americans see it for what it is and reject it, but apparently his working-class diehard followers still think that Trump cares about them and their needs.
Nothing shouts monarchy more than an ostentatious Louis XIV-style gold-plated ballroom. Make America Great Again! — for the king and his court. For the rest of us, the “unwashed masses,” not so much.