Everyone—and I mean everyone (including Steve Bannon)—thinks Donald Trump has totally gone around the bend with his recent sale of limited edition Trump NFT superhero cards. To be sure, my first impulse was to do up a true-to-life Trump baseball card with his stat line from 2015-2022, featuring wins/losses, ERA, batting average, slugging average, strikeouts, errors, and the key number for all baseball “sabermetric” nerds these days, his “wins above replacement” (WAR) number, which would likely be negative by now, making Trump an unlikely free agent acquisition even for a struggling, money-deprived team like the Republican Party. For baseball analogy nerds, it is tempting to see Trump as the Mark Fidrych of modern politics—a phenom that flamed out.
But maybe this stunt isn’t a crazy as it seems. First, take in Trump’s announcement if you didn’t see it:
Sounds pretty nuts: “Better than Lincoln? Better than Washington?” Pretty sure you can tell Trump is in on the joke here. It is possible he really believes this, but I doubt it. I’m betting Trump thinks his egotism and braggadocio is an asset for him, and knows this kind of hyperbole sends his critics and opponents into a sputtering fit.
So with people (including Never Trumpers) saying that Ron DeSantis is just Trump with more experience and better practical judgment, Trump’s NFT stunt reminds everyone once again of why he is categorically different than every other politician. In other words, it reminds a lot of ordinary Americans of why they liked him in the first place. He can’t go back to the same stunts and slogans that grabbed everyone’s attention in 2015/16. Like any showman, he needs new material. This stunt has the same effect as all his earlier provocations—making him the center of attention, and disorienting the media and all his critics. It is simply inconceivable for any other political figure doing anything remotely like this.
Plus it put $5 million in Trump’s pocket. With major media organizations imposing large layoffs right now (and secretly hoping Trump is the 2024 nominee at least), who are the dummies now?
The point is: never count out Trump. The guy has more political lives than the proverbial cat.
