Former President turned Florida man Donald Trump has made a name for himself as possibly the world’s most successful online troll. While the bulk of his shitposting repertoire has mostly been reserved for observers on the political left, Trump shook things up this week and went after his own supporters.
When the 2024 presidential hopeful cryptically said a “major announcement ,” was imminent this week, his followers quickly took to the internet to see if their preferred candidate would formally announce his running mate or some other major policy agenda. Instead, Trump revealed an incredibly lame NFT collection seemingly based on poorly photoshopped stock images.
Each of Trump’s 45,000 “digital trading cards,” sold for $99 a pop, with one of the purchasers guaranteed a chance to bask in the former president’s presence during some future in-person event. The Trump NFTs are a lazy grift but, because it’s Trump, they all reportedly sold out in less than a day. While Trump was indeed able to make a quick buck off the NFT’s he simultaneously managed to piss off a wide swath of his Republican supporters who saw the announcement as evidence he either wasn’t taking his 2024 election bid seriously or was simply interested in putting together a comprehensive campaign.
As the events of the past seven years have borne out, it takes a herculean amount of bullshit to get Trump loyalists to criticize their holy leader, which makes the recent NFT pushback all the more interesting. Though the NFTs were likely the straw that broke the camel’s back, Republicans in general have begun growing uneasy with Trump in light of his flailing early poll numbers. 61% of Republicans surveyed in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll said they would prefer another Republican nominee over Trump. Two thirds of GOP leaning voters in that poll said they wanted to see Florida Governor Ron DeSantis run for the presidency. We’re not even in 2023 yet.
Keep reading through to see some of the biggest conservative voices caught off guard by Trump’s NFT collection
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Steve Bannon, the far-right podcaster credited by many as one of the main masterminds behind Trump’s 2016 victory, simply couldn’t contain his disdain for Trump’s NFT collection, which he called a “stunt.”
“Okay, I can’t do this anymore,” Bannon said on his podcast while watching Trump’s announcement. “He’s one of the greatest presidents in history,” Bannon added, “but we’re at war.”
“They [Trump’s business partners] ought to be fired today,” Bannon added.
Bannon was speaking on his War Room podcast with former Trump Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka who had his own criticism of the collections.
“I don’t want them making the presidential napkins for Mar-a-Lago,” Gorka said. “We don’t have time to waste.”
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When even one of the organizers of the Stop the Steal movement says you’ve gone too far, it’s probably time for some proper reflection. That’s exactly what happened this week when organizer Daniel Bostic blasted the former president on Twitter.
If this is the #MAJORANNOUNCEMENT it is embarrassing and a slap in the face to Trump’s base,” Bostic said. “People are struggling and losing their country. They’re begging for real action—not childish stunts like this.
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San Francisco Republican Party chairman John Dennis added his knife to the GOP backstabbing party and called on the brainchild behind the NFT collection to be, “exiled.”
“I like Trump,” Dennis said. “This is not a good idea. Whoever advised Trump to sell NFT’s shouldn’t be fired. They should be exiled.
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For years, Fox News has served as the main megaphone for Trump, amplifying even his wildest ideas and sticking by his side when other members of the Republican establishment turned their back on him. Still, despite that proven loyalty, Trump’s NFTs were simply too dumb for some Fox staff to handle.
“Sure, inflation is wrecking the economy, Russia and China are on the move, the culture war wages at home, but at least presidential candidate Donald Trump is offering voters Trump Digital Trading Cards they can buy for $99 each,” Fox Breaking News reporter Chris Pandolfo wrote. “Get your NFT today!”
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Robby Starbuck, a former film and television producer turned congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 5th District was amongst the many Republicans who said Trump missed the mark with his NFT collection. Granted, what Starbuck’s wants Trump to focus on is the unreal threat of a supposed Marxist takeover, but hey, take what you can get.
“Teasing NFT cards as a major announcement is not the kind of fight people want to see now,” the Cuban-American candidate said. “These are dark times. Love the guy but this turns many off. “
Starbuck went on to conduct a Twitter poll asking his 288,000 followers if they were “turned off by Trump’s NFT announcement. A whopping 80% said they were.
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Trump-supporting Republicans have never missed an opportunity to gloat about the nontrivial gains the former president made amongst hispanic and Latino voters in 2020. That makes this reaction from a conservative editor of the Spanish language publication El American all the more embarrassing.
“So Trump’s “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” was actually just a grift to promote a bunch of worthless trading cards,” conservative commentator Ben Kew wrote.” Even my grandmother knows NFTs are a scam.”
The real gut punch, however came at the tail end of the Tweet, where Kew wrote #DeSantis2024.
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Alright, admittedly this isn’t the most consequential example of Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen turning against him. For that, one can go watch this 2019 congressional testimony. Still, the convicted lawyer spent years of his life essentially serving as a human step stool for the former president and even wasn’t able to keep his tongue tied about the NFT collection.
“Nobody knew what the hell Donald was going to be putting out there,” Cohen said in an interview with MediasTouch. “The grifter in chief, “Don the Con,” has done it again.”
“I mean if this isn’t the biggest piece of bullshit you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Cohen added. “I truly do not think that Donald Trump is going to enter the [2024] race. I don’t think he actually wants to run for it because he knows he can’t win.
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This list primarily consists of Republicans and current president Joe Biden, as far as we can tell, certainly does not count himself amongst that cohort’s mix. Biden’s also incredibly un-funny. That said, the President, or whoever manages his Twitter account did manage to capitalize on an easy lay-up this week following Trump’s NFT announcement that’s worthy of a chuckle or two.
Following the announcement, Biden’s twitter account posted a tweet where he said he had some “announcements” of his own. The president then went on to list in bullet points five of his biggest achievements in office over the past few weeks, which include the lowering of inflation and gas prices and bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Okay, we didn’t say it was a particularly hilarious joke but credit where credit is due.
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