HOW STUPID ARE THE TRUMPTARDS?

This Stupid

Everyone says it’s not nice to call out the Trump supporters for their stupidity, but the stupidity of the “Conservative Movement” is legendary. It was founded by a con artist, Richard Vigurie, who got hold of a mailing list and used it to raise money by convincing people there were all kinds of crises needing their immediate attention, and small donation to help to solve the problems - none of which existed; or if they did, were not as he described them. The “con” in “conservative” goes back a looong way.

Now there are Trump Coins. They’re simple novelty coins, tokens of admiration for former President Donald J. Trump. They’re made of iron; the “gold” is paint. They’re made in China. They have no intrinsic value. They’re also one of the hottest products out there.

The “Trump coin” has become a favorite of right-wing social media and fringe news sites. It features Trump’s face embossed in gold on a base of shining silver. “Keep America Great,” is written in an arc atop his head. Some ads describe the coin as a kind of cryptocurrency, suggesting it will soon be worth thousands.

It could be yours, too, for just $0. (Plus $9.99 shipping and handling.)

It’s not obvious who’s promoting it or profiting from it. It’s sold by a mysterious news website about which little is disclosed. Mr. Trump has nothing to do with the coin. No identifiable company is taking credit.

The New York Times tracked a network of advertisers and followed their activity from public storefronts to private marketing portals. What they discovered was not just the coin’s unusual origins, but an entire disinformation supply chain that relied on falsehoods and misinformation at nearly every step. The coin’s commercial success was the result of fake social media accounts that pushed false ads and misleading news websites that preyed on partisan discontent.

The Trump coin shows how right-wing interest in cryptocurrencies has allowed buyers who already believed Trump was working on his own cryptocurrency to believe this coin would be redeemed by him.

It all began with a fake account from “RealDenzelWashington” on Telegram, the chap app that is a hotbed of un-monitored far right-wing activityots.

It reads:

“Democrats are liars! I couldn’t handle their agenda and constant lies, so I decided to help team Trump! I turned my attention in the right direction! To the one who deserves it the most, the one who looks after our People and our country. The truth will set us free, and the truth is that President Trump is the best leader for our country.

“Democrats are only causing panic and insecurity, and the American people are not safe with them on the wheel. Slowly bur surely they are turning America into a puppet, playing the neighbors game, serving other countries, and fulfilling their desires. This is a wakeup call; something must change sooner than later. The truth is closer to revealing itself, we are all in this together.”

The account then announced that “real money” would disappear and the “Trump coin” would replace it.

The phony Denzel Washington account is one of many on Telegram using celebrity names and photos to push the Trump coin. There’s Ivanka Trump (more than 100,000 followers at one point), Mel Gibson (over 140,000 followers), the Trump-era special prosecutor John H. Durham (over 210,000 followers), along with Keanu Reeves, Senator Ted Cruz and even John F. Kennedy Jr. (who died in 1999). A fake account for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a fake story on a fake Fox News website about a fake tweet by a fake Elon Musk, falsely claiming Tesla’s chief executive would soon accept Trump coins as payment for Tesla cars.

There is a real Trumpcoin cryptocurrency, but it has no connection to the physical coins and apparently no connection to Trump. A week ago, Eric Trump threatened to sue the people behind the Trumpcoin cryptocurrency.

One buyer apparently misled about the Trump coin was a Telegram user, TheBlueOx, who said he had bought over $500 worth of physical Trump coins in hopes that they would one day be exchanged for Trump’s official cryptocurrency.“Seems somewhat risky to me but $500 against a potentially large upside seemed like a reasonable risk,” the user wrote. “TheBlueOx” - I can just see this moron: white, male, 40ish, with that “illiterate ignoramus” look to his barbering.

The source of the coin is the Raw Conservative Opinions Store. The shop itself is hosted by the right-wing news purveyor Raw Conservative Opinions, which features an American flag logo and a color scheme in red, white and blue. No owner is listed for Raw Conservative Opinions. The Times found the website was registered in 2016 using a business park address in Louisville, Ky. A representative from the office building said the suite number did not exist. A phone number was provided, but a woman who answered said she didn’t speak English and hung up, then didn’t answer repeated phone calls and text messages.

In the sprawling world of online advertising, one niche plays an outsize role in the sale of the Trump coin: affiliate marketers. Here’s how that works: when someone buys the coin, most of the money goes to the seller. But a cut is shared with the affiliate marketer - an independent worker who advertises products online for a cut of the profits. (Like how you see some sites advertise books mentioned with links to Amazon)

ClickBank, a large affiliate network based in Idaho, listed the coin last year when sales were surging. The company wrote in a blog post that the Trump coin was its most popular product for October, and No. 2 in November.

Trump Coins first appeared as “political merchandise” during the 2016 election, according to Maxwell Finn, an affiliate marketing expert who advised on one of the first Trump coins. That coin “did really well, and whenever something does well, you have hundreds of people trying to copy it,” said Finn. By the 2020 election, the pandemic, vaccines and lies about a stolen election each offered new ways to excite Trump supporters and generate interest in the merchandise.

“It was just a perfect storm,” Mr. Finn said

The Times found that the company behind the coin is linked to another website, Conservative Affiliate, which after quite a bit of technical research was found to be linked to the Romanian marketing company Stone Force Media. This is an internet marketing company specializing in “audience acquisition and monetization,” according to its Facebook page. The company’s co-founders are Vlad Bolovan, who lists on his Instagram profile that he lives in Bucharest, and Brandon Kelly, who lists on his Facebook profile that he is from California and lives in Romania. Operating from Bucharest since 2016 with a staff of eight, Stone Force posted revenue of $1.07 million 2019, according to the business analysis company Dun & Bradstreet.

According to the Times, Rachel Edwards, a mother of three from Alabama, said the coins immediately caught her eye — and so did the price, with a single coin costing nothing but shipping and handling. “So I ordered five,” she said. They arrived in about a week, packaged inside a simple padded envelope. The coins looked good, each in a protective plastic case, and she said they had enough heft to suggest they were real silver.

Neil Segal, a dealer at Colonial Stamp and Coin in Kingston, N.Y., tested a Trump Coin bought from the Raw Conservative Opinions Store. He used a device that detects precious metals. He found no gold or silver. The coin was also magnetic, suggesting it was mostly made of iron.

Jack Batelic, a gold appraiser at PRS Gold Buyers in Newburgh, N.Y., tested a coin using a nitric acid solution. After he applied a blob to Mr. Trump’s gold-colored image, the area darkened, bubbled and then turned green. It was paint.

What was it worth? “Nothing,” he said.

How fucking stupid are Trumpkins? According to this research, they must compose the majority of those who respond to e-mails from Nigerian princes offering millions if you give them the information on your bank account so they can park the money there.

If you weren’t in favor of “Team Virus” cleaning these people out before, you will be now.

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