The Stagecraft That Ushered In The Trump Oligarchy

When President Donald Trump was sworn in for his return to office Monday for a second term, it was a historic moment for the country — and a relatively muted one for much of Colorado’s highest profile politicians. Some Colorado Democrats were uncharacteristically silent on the event and what Trump said from the U.

Donald Trump launched a multibillion-dollar meme coin just days before taking office and instantly saw his net worth balloon. But then, as the initial excitement passed, the value plunged and occasionally spiked again through the first roller-coaster hours of Trump’s second presidency. Despite the optimism of some crypto enthusiasts that the $TRUMP coin’s debut Friday heralded a new era of automatic crypto riches, the value of the coin had plummeted to around half of its weekend high of $72.62 by the time Trump was sworn in Monday. Meme coins have no intrinsic value or particular usefulness as a currency but serve more as a cultural signifier.

Over the weekend, TikTok very briefly died in the United States before being reborn some 12 hours later, bearing a jaunty new banner. “As a result of President Trump’s efforts,” it read, in part, “TikTok is back in the U. S.” The biggest tech and social media companies have consolidated behind Trump. Trump was not yet president on Sunday, when TikTok began restoring U.

You could learn most of what you needed to know about the tone and tenor of Donald Trump’s second inauguration by the people who showed up to watch it. It was a perfectly 2025 mixture of influencers, fighters, billionaires, and bootlickers. Conor McGregor, a UFC star who was recently found guilty of sexual assault by an Irish jury, traveled to the ceremony in a party bus with the comedian Theo Von, influencer brothers Jake and Logan Paul, and “Nelk Boys” YouTuber Kyle Forgeard.

Upon assuming the presidency Monday, Donald Trump is expected to immediately move to end the federal government’s recognition of transgender people, who have existed in hundreds of societies worldwide since ancient times. In an executive order titled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the full text of which has not been released, Trump will reportedly mandate that the federal government acknowledge only “biological sex”—specifically, whether an individual is born with eggs or sperm. As Trump announced in his inaugural address, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.” According to multiple reports from a briefing by unnamed White House officials, federal agencies will be instructed to classify people by biological sex on government IDs like passports, visas, and personnel documents.

It's time for the lies and coverups to stop.