What do Liebig’s meat extract and Donald Trump have in common? Both of them had the idea of boosting their business with collector’s cards. When Liebig started doing this in 1875, the idea was no longer entirely new. Today she seems downright desperate. But that doesn’t matter to Trump. Most of his ideas are firstly not his and secondly from the day before yesterday, but because a large part of his dwindling supporters love the illusion that Trump would do for them what they can’t do themselves, namely turn back time, they believe that too whatever he offers.
Donald in space
The latest in Uncle Donald’s online store: NFT collectibles with photomontages of himself. Price each: $99. Sounds like fake news, but it is the reality. And even if it was a joke, Trump would grin and put it into practice as quickly as possible, after all, the pictures show Donald in space, Donald as a heavily armed recreational ranger, Donald as a muscle-bound superhero in the style of Marvel cartoon characters -Group, which once owned the collector’s picture producer Panini for a while. No fake news either: the collection is already sold out. In short, the collectibles show the multifaceted nature of Trump’s infantile self-perception in all its sparseness: a self-adoring caricature with a keen business acumen. As an ex-president, what do you get from your ex-voters if you can neither get votes nor money from them?
Should Trump run again as a presidential candidate, which Super Mario may prevent, the collecting picture mice can be useful for campaign financing. If he has to admit defeat to DeSantis, a little play money can at least be comforting. Incidentally, seven Panini bags with 35 stickers for the soccer World Cup in Qatar cost 6.49 euros, while 24 little pictures of Super Mario in the “Fatpack” cost a whopping 8.50 euros. Donald Trump Fatpack costs $4455. There is the entire collection of 45 digital Donald pictures and a seat at a gala dinner with Trump. So perhaps in the near future some American living rooms will repeat what has already happened in countless children’s rooms all over the world: enthusiastically collecting little pictures, carefully sticking little pictures into the album, and after a short while burying the album just as carefully somewhere in the closet. A year later: Throw away the album.
