There is nothing foolish about it because those who buy a big chunk of the memecoin know they'll be getting special favors in exchange for the purchase. It's transactional, and it yields significant protections and returns for their businesses.

It was known well in advance that those making big contributions to his reelection campaign, e.g. as did the oil and gas industry, also the cryptocurrency industry, will receive major favors as they have. Memecoins were just an extension of the approach in a post-victory setting. To my knowledge, it's all legal.

For the future, I wonder if it would be better or worse to eliminate almost all powers from the President's authority, giving him an elevated position mostly just in name, with most decisions being made by Congress. It has its pros and cons, but it's the safer choice.

This has been the case in the US for at least 50 years but it did get recently much worse. Previously, Obama was openly shilling for Boeing. Reagan arbitrarily deregulated things, creating the S&L crisis and wrecked many other things, and funded American-trained death squads by getting poor and brown people hooked on drugs. The duopoly "choices" offered thus far have been between John Birch Society Nazis and limousine liberals... both warmongering corporatists who won't do anything for ordinary people but are totally engrossed on winning more money and passing more laws for their masters.

Honestly, that's the least of the damage to the American reputation.

He's actively distancing the US from our traditional allies. Tariffs undercut our trade partners. We're threatening to invade NATO countries. Even after 2028, our partners are going to have a hard time believing our commitments.

Compared to that, mere grift hardly registers.