The mass hysteria surrounding Donald Trump’s second term as president, with his title as the “first crypto president,” has upended the American way of politics, which has long been predicated on national responsibility over personal fortune. Trump will not be the sole president who has exploited his position in search of personal fortune. The difference is “his grand scheme for his personal fortune,” which no other president has attempted before.
This unprecedented chapter began with the launch of a “meme coin” called “Official Trump” on January 17, 2025, followed by the announcement on January 18. After being listed on major crypto exchanges, the Official Trump coin surged from eight to 75 USD within hours, reaching a peak value of 14 billion USD. With the Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital and a CIC co-owned entity called Fight Fight Fight LLC. (“Fight fight fight”) reportedly holding 80% of the coin’s supply, it added 50 billion USD to Trump’s network. At the same time, financial analysts raised questions about market manipulation, as within hours, the coin’s value crashed to about 40 USD, now trading at 28 USD. The following day, First Lady Melania Trump introduced her official Melania meme coin on the day of the inauguration, which jumped to 13 USD with a market valuation of 13 billion.
The President and First Lady officially endorsing crypto meme coins furthered the legitimacy of these projects, drawing intense scrutiny given their responsibility to cater to the United States’ interests rather than pursue their personal financial goals. While these coins are marketed as entertainment and thus evade regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), billions of dollars in transactions have left many Americans with substantial losses. With this gimmick of being a crypto-friendly president, supporters herald this move as a bold step toward the fulfillment of a promise he made during the Nashville Bitcoin conference in 2024, “Making the United States the Crypto capital of the world.” Financial experts warn it could undermine the country’s economic credibility.
With a staggering national debt of 35 trillion USD, such unprecedented measures of endorsing the meme coin by the US President threaten to lead to his audacious plan to address the debt crisis by writing off the US debt in cryptocurrency,“a plan previously discussed by Trump as he stated”Maybe we’ll pay off the 35 trillion in crypto,“he said.”How do you like that? I’ll write on a little piece of paper, ’$35 trillion crypto.’ We have no debt. Right? That’s what I like." While initially dismissed as hyperbole, his administration’s foray into meme coins suggests this idea may warrant more serious scrutiny.
The Dark Maga: The Global Fallout of MAGA Politics
Among the most eye-catching developments under Trump’s second term that have sparked drama is the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek announced his exit soon after Trump returned to office. It has begun making several recommendations that override the bureaucracy’s independence. DOGE, which leverages corporate efficiency to cut down on federal government expenditures and reduce the bureaucratic workforce, might lead to the exclusion of dissenting voices with appointments of those who adhere to the ideological basis of this administration, threatening to undermine constitutional freedom – a Republican tenet under the fundamental doctrine of the “separation of power.”
Self-proclaimed Dark Maga billionaire Elon Musk, who previously wielded significant influence over the cryptocurrency market, has amplified his reach by aligning with Donald Trump and attempting to influence global politics. With his growing influence, Musk’s open endorsement of far-right parties across Europe has stirred political unrest.
In his tweet, Musk stated, “Only AFD can save Germany,” referring to the controversial Alternative for Germany party, which is now leading the polls in Germany ahead of the February 2025 elections. Musk’s involvement was received as hostile to the democratic developments in Germany, as reported by Olaf Scholz, who stated, “He (Elon Musk) supports the extreme right throughout Europe, in Britain, in Germany, in many, many other countries, and that is completely unacceptable. This endangers the democratic development of Europe; it endangers our community, which must be criticized.” This alignment catches a broader trend of “internationalizing MAGA politics.” What began as a US-centric movement has become a global phenomenon, emboldening fascism across Europe.
Conservatism Reimagined: A Revolutionary Shift?
Carrying this trend on his shoulders, Donald Trump and his compatriots did long-lasting damage to the traditional conservative principles celebrated by the Republican Party – historically pioneered as the “protectors of the law and government institutions;” however, under Trump’s leadership, a new MAGA echo chamber has developed that will dominate Republican party politics for decades to come, with leading voices such as Vivek Ramasmawy and James Vance, who now will be the 47th United States Vice President who continuously propounded the idea of “the deep state,” radically altered the principles of the Republican party which has now evolved to delegitimize the institutions it once protected with an emphasis on “total replacement.” This leaves us questioning whether the Republican party will become a “Revolutionary Party,” therefore marking a state of unchangeability.
The leftist political parties have long challenged these institutions for being instruments of bourgeois power and class oppression, with ambitions to alter traditional institutions with new ideas, announcing the decline of these antiquated institutions. These institutions received tremendous backlash during Trump’s first presidency and they have now reappeared, posing a deep concern about maintaining a non-partisan commitment to civil service as enshrined in the Pendleton Act of 1883. Sociologist John Campbell analyzed that during the first presidency of Donald Trump, using executive power, Trump had his top-level appointees infiltrate and exploit the power of civil service, which caused the loss of institutional knowledge and respect. Republican politics has diverged sharply from traditional conservatism, veering onto a path marked by mass hysteria and an embrace of irrationality, or rather right-wing populism.
The Global Implications of Irrational Leadership
Beyond the borders of the US, Trump’s rhetoric surrounding a potential American military invasion of Panama, annexing Canada by turning it into the 51st State of the USA, and offering bids to purchase Greenland from Denmark under the grand scheme of National Interest has jeopardized the facade of international legitimacy that the United States of America once promoted as a seemingly rational actor with rational motives. Statesmanship in the international realm valorizes rational behavior, whereas paranoia and ephemeral tyrants are often sidelined by global powers, including authoritarian leaders and warmongers that destabilize the international order; however, the tides of time have changed. With the transition of power from Joseph Biden to Donald Trump, American politics has entered a new normal, beginning with one of the greatest tragedies in American history in the present century.
This development postulates that the United States, rejecting the “Democratic Peace Theory,” might be willing to engage in military conflicts against democratic countries, accelerating a new era of American expansionism under the “Donroe Doctrine”. The Donroe Doctrine offers a fusion of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine under President James Monroe, establishing a foreign policy precedent that outrightly rejected the presence of European powers on the American continent, and Theodore Roosevelt’s tradition of assertive interventionism, which in 1904 expanded the Monroe Doctrine to justify US intervention in Latin America, advocating for military means to realize strategic interests. This development has clashed starkly with Donald Trump’s posture of “American Isolationism” during his first term.
The decline of rationality will enable powers like Russia that have ventured into “old-time politics” to renegotiate and restructure international politics with their BRICS partner, The People’s Republic of China, which has scaled up to continue to pursue the Chinese worldview (shìjiè guān) through their collaboration and strategic partnerships, offering an alternative, multipolar global model to the developing world. The heuristic reasoning that Trump has employed while suggesting bringing peace to Ukraine by ending the war infers a transactional approach to diplomacy.
Trump’s unwavering support behind future Israeli adventures in Gaza recently came to a halt in the wake of the violation of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, raising concerns about the United States of America’s role as a rational mediator and peacemaker in Europe and the Middle East. The norms that once defined American politics are rapidly evolving.
At home, Americans’ minds snap shut, resulting in polarized division with hysteric leadership that is about to govern the United States of America for the next four years; it begs the question of whether “America that was once seen as a beacon of rationality and institutional stability will continue to retreat into polarity and unpredictability on the global landscape?” The question now is not only what this means for the United States but also how the international community will adapt to an era where unpredictability reigns supreme.
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