How the Trumps Turned the Presidency Into a Hereditary Grift and Called It Governance
There is a word for a political system in which power flows through bloodlines, in which the children of the ruler occupy positions of privilege not because they earned them but because they were born into them, in which access to the state is purchased through proximity to the royal family, and in which the distinction between the nation’s treasury and the family’s wallet has effectively ceased to exist.
The word is monarchy. We don’t use it about America because we find it embarrassing. We should start using it, because it is accurate, and because the alternative framing — that what the Trump family is doing constitutes normal political behavior — is a lie that is costing the country something it will not easily recover.
The other word, the one that fits even better when you add the corruption and the loyalty requirements and the punishment of defectors and the collection of tribute from supplicants seeking favor, is one we also tend to avoid in polite American political commentary.
The word is mafia.
The Inventory
Let us be specific, because the scope of it requires specificity to be believed.
The Trump family has transformed the presidency into a personal money-making operation, adding billions of dollars to Trump’s net worth through cryptocurrency schemes entangled with foreign governments, corporate allies, and criminal actors — with crypto holdings worth as much as $11.6 billion and income of more than $800 million from the sale of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone. Wikipedia
A Reuters analysis found the Trump family has added at least $2.3 billion to its fortune through crypto ventures since the 2024 election, while investors in those projects collectively lost roughly $2.3 billion. The $TRUMP meme coin generated about $616 million for the Trump family, while buyers lost more than $700 million. The meme coin has tumbled 97 percent from its January 2025 peak. World Liberty Financial brought the Trump family more than $1.4 billion from sales of governance tokens — through a structure that directs 75 percent of proceeds to a Trump-controlled entity — while buyers of the token suffered losses as its value fell 87 percent from its peak. The ventures relied heavily on licensing agreements and revenue-sharing arrangements, allowing the family to collect proceeds while contributing little or no capital to the projects. Race to the WH
Read that again. The Trumps made $2.3 billion. The investors lost $2.3 billion. The family risked essentially nothing. The public absorbed the loss. This is not investing. This is extraction.
Don Jr. and Eric Trump also founded American Bitcoin, which Forbes estimates is increasing Don Jr.’s net worth by as much as $80 million. Truth Social is entering the prediction markets business through “Truth Predict,” a partnership between Trump Media and Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency trading platform that has donated millions to Trump causes. RealClearPollingRealClearPolling
And then there is Barron. Trump’s youngest child — just 20 years old — is worth an estimated $150 million. Most of that valuation comes from his investment stake in World Liberty Financial, the financial firm run by his two older half-brothers. Barron also holds a large stake in World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin, USD1, which has an overall market cap of $2.6 billion. RealClearPolling
A 20-year-old whose primary qualification is his last name is worth $150 million. This is inheritance dressed up as entrepreneurship. This is dynasty dressed up as market participation.
The Enforcer and the Invisible
Ivanka Trump is technically out of the spotlight. She is a partner in her husband’s financial firm, Affinity Partners, but seems intent on staying out of her father’s spotlight. This is a shrewd arrangement. She provides the Trump imprimatur without the Trump exposure. RealClearPolling
Jared Kushner provides the access. Kushner’s Miami-based investment firm Affinity Partners has been a dumping ground for massive investments from global figures, even as Kushner serves as an unofficial leader for diplomatic negotiations concerning the Iran war. In 2024, his firm received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and manages over $4.8 billion in foreign funds. He has reportedly collected over $100 million in management fees from the Saudis, who reportedly supported Trump’s entry into the war. RealClearPolling
Pause there. The Saudis invested $2 billion in Kushner’s fund. The Saudis reportedly supported the Iran war. Kushner is a primary negotiator of that same war. When asked about conflicts of interest, Kushner said: “What people call conflicts of interest, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world.” RealClearPolling
That is not a defense. That is a confession reframed as a credential.
An Emirati-backed firm acquired a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial just before Trump’s inauguration, raising immediate questions about whether they were doing so to gain access to AI chip exports. When pressed on CNBC about the deal, Eric Trump looked visibly uncomfortable. Don Jr. dismissed it: “I mean, they tried all this nonsense the first time around. Frankly, it’s gotten old.” 270toWin.com270toWin.com
Old. The corruption has gotten old. He said this out loud. On television.
The Regulatory Apparatus as Family Protection
None of this happens by accident. The machinery of government has been reorganized to serve it.
Trump appointed a 36-year-old former corporate lawyer with ties to crypto firms and prediction markets as sole chair of the CFTC — the agency that regulates derivatives and commodity markets — and left all four other board seats vacant, effectively stripping away the agency’s internal checks and balances and consolidating broad authority in the hands of its new chair. Even before his appointment, the chair’s predecessor undermined the CFTC’s oversight role to benefit powerful industry players connected to the Trump family. 270toWin.com
While enriching himself and his family through crypto, Trump has simultaneously dismantled the federal oversight and safeguards that once protected Americans from fraud, scams, and financial exploitation. He has pardoned criminals who committed fraud through crypto. Wikipedia
This is the machinery of the mafia boss applied to federal regulatory policy. You protect your business by eliminating the enforcement mechanism. You pardon your associates. You install loyalists in the oversight seats and leave the oversight seats empty where loyalists can’t be found. You call it deregulation. You call it pro-business. You call it making America great.
The Tiffany Problem and the Family Hierarchy
Even the margins of the family have figured out the access model. Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos aren’t cashing in in any small way either. Boulos, the son of a Lebanese transportation millionaire, married Tiffany Trump in 2022 — and almost immediately became significantly more successful. He took a cut from the sale of a superyacht to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Boulos is currently under investigation by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee over allegations that he charged a Saudi businessman $100,000 for an introduction and photos with the president. RealClearPolling
One hundred thousand dollars. For a photo with the president. And an introduction.
This is the access economy in its purest form. The family is the product. Proximity to the family is the commodity. The price is whatever the market will bear, and the market is foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds, cryptocurrency investors, and anyone else with enough money and enough need to be in the room.
In a monarchy, you bring tribute to the king. The king’s children collect it on his behalf. The children’s spouses collect it on the children’s behalf. The system radiates outward from the center of power and everyone in the bloodline benefits from the mere fact of their connection to the throne.
In a mafia, the boss’s family is untouchable by definition. You do business with them not because you believe in the product but because doing business with them is the price of operating in their territory. The tribute flows upward. The protection flows downward. The outside world calls it corruption. Inside the family, they call it loyalty.
When James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, was asked on CNN whether he would investigate the Trump family’s $800 million in crypto earnings from foreign sources, he replied: “The difference is they’re open about it.” RealClearPolling
Open about it. That is the Republican Party’s official position on the most brazen financial corruption in the history of the American presidency. They’re open about it. There is nothing left to investigate. The grift is the feature. The dynasty is the point. The monarchy is operational, the tribute is flowing, and the only question that remains is whether any institution in this country still has the authority and the will to say that this is not, in fact, how a republic is supposed to work.
The children are counting on the answer being no.
So far, they’re right.