JUST IN: President Trump announces a new immigration “Gold Card” that will be sold to immigrants for $5 million.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 25, 2025
The Gold Card is a premium version of a Green Card, according to Trump, and will provide immigrants with a pathway to citizenship.
“We’re gonna be selling a gold… pic.twitter.com/U3Bx3Nogfd
A couple of thoughts:
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) February 25, 2025
– We already have a similar program, the EB-5 visa, but that requires investing $500k or 1 million in US businesses and creating jobs, not just buying in.
– Trump can't do anything like this without Congress. The president can't sell green cards. Period. https://t.co/3PxkzTc2wn
The Gold Card is arguably the most “gilded” thing Trump has done yet.
“President Donald Trump says he’s open to attracting one kind of immigrant — people with money.
Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters Tuesday that the administration plans to offer a “gold card” that would confer legal residency to foreigners at a cost of about $5 million. They said it would replace an existing U.S. visa program for overseas investors that’s long been mired in controversy. …”
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, the country is being flooded by a tsunami of legal and illegal immigrants and people who arrive on various forms of “temporary” work visas. Many of these people are worthless and have children who acquire citizenship as anchor babies. 99.999% of these people don’t have the ability to contribute anything like paying $5 million for citizenship to help pay down the deficit. At least the small number of legal immigrants who come in through this proposed Gold Card are seen as valuable because they can add something to the country. This is a different mindset from the system we have now where we are expected to absorb endless millions of people from the Third World as punishment for “racism.”
On the other hand, the Gold Card really does underscore the fact that we have become a plutocracy, so much so that we are throwing out the welcome mat for the world’s plutocrats. We are auctioning off citizenship and you have to be at least a millionaire to qualify.
“When, in the nineteen-nineties, people decided that we were living in a new Gilded Age, the meaning was plain. The term, borrowed from the 1873 Mark Twain novel of the same name—a mediocre book by a great writer with a memorable title, like Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now”—indicated an efflorescence of wealth and display, of overabundance and nouveau-riche excess. It referred mostly to the Veblenian side of American life: status competition through showy objects, from the cloud-level duplexes of the New York skyline to the Met Gala. Perhaps not enough attention was paid to the original concept, which implied a contrast between the truly golden and the merely gilded.
What we didn’t anticipate was that our new Gilded Age would become even more like its precursor—not only in the seeming concentration of overwhelming wealth into fewer and fewer hands but in the gravitation toward a plutocracy. In the industrial age, the totemic figures were Frick and Morgan and Rockefeller; in our post-industrial era, they are Bezos and Musk and Zuckerberg. During that first Gilded Age—if we imagine it running from the eighteen-seventies to 1910—a counter cast of characters had a glamorous appeal of their own. These were the anarchists, whose isolated but highly publicized acts of individual retaliation were intended as inspirational melodramatic theatre rather than as actual revolutionary politics. In these years, anarchists claimed the lives of a French President, an American President, an Italian king, and a Russian tsar, and threw bombs at several American tycoons. Whether or not Luigi Mangione’s recent alleged murder of a helpless insurance executive on a cold New York morning belongs to this tradition, its affect and effect certainly evoke the past, with the curly-haired Ivy-educated youth conferring, in the realm of social media, an improbable aura of martyrdom and purpose on what otherwise would have seemed a sordid act. …
Though James never uses the term “plutocrat,” plutocratic America is what he was examining. To what extent were his plutocrats like ours? The Gilded Age plutocrats made their money in steel (Carnegie), oil (Rockefeller), mining (Frick), and railroads (Vanderbilt), but in the main their business models were not so different from those of their counterparts today. Musk makes most of his money in hard industrial goods, mainly cars and satellites, while losing money on the digital-media front—just as that other carmaker, Henry Ford, futilely poured money into his antisemitic newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Bezos, meanwhile, made much of his money by finding new ways for consumers to shop for more goods more efficiently while forcing smaller retailers out of business, exactly like Wanamaker and Woolworth in their day.
Yet real differences persist. The typical plutocrat who built the America, and particularly the New York, that James visited was a businessman with almost absolute freedom to act, and his political power was enormous. (It is worth recalling that Hitler’s constant insult to the democratic governments of Britain and America was that they were simply screens for predatory plutocrats.) Yet these men’s behavior was tightly circumscribed, at least in appearance. The plutocrats of the first Gilded Age were mostly content to influence from a distance, through intermediaries. For one thing, they were busy and living far away from Washington, at a time when that still mattered. For another, discretion had political advantages. When J. P. Morgan met with President Grover Cleveland in 1895, to discuss a deal to supply the government with gold while enriching Morgan’s syndicate with government-issued bonds, it was a scandal that contributed to Cleveland’s ouster the following year. Bezos and Musk have made a bet that increasing their economic power requires increasing their political power, in a fairly direct way. …”
Ultimately, this is consistent with my expectations of where the country is going.
The price is too low. It should be at least $10 million.
US citizenship is worth at least that much, considering the natural resources of this country and the sacrifices our ancestors made to create this nation.
Selling citizenship is a typical Republican attitude; everything has a price and a price for everything. If this proposal becomes law, more of the worst scum from the worst places on earth will become new “Americans”. $5 million USD is pocket change for the tyrants, dictators, psychopaths, drug dealers, thieves, human smugglers, fraudsters and other fine, upstanding examples of humanity typically found in abundance in the dark corners of Third World shitholes Trump has railed against.
Imagine S. American child smugglers, Haitian psychotics, Pakistani groomers and other fine, upstanding examples of humanity as new neighbors. Their next stop will be to buy up the whores of Congress and after paying suitable bribes (i.e. “campaign contributions”), petitioning for more of their dusky hued, vicious and corrupt family member to be allowed in. Will DJT require these new “Americans” to show their loyalty by buying some of his meme ($TRUMP) coins? Will he do a rug pull once that drives the price up? Why not, there is money to be made here.
https://futurism.com/crypto-crash-trump-meme-coin
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/tips-and-tutorials/what-is-a-rug-pull-and-how-to-avoid-it
For it to work citizenship would need to be strictly limited. Nobody will pay $5 million for US citizenship when the door is open for much less. The number of nonWhites who could and would drop $5M for US citizenship is very small. In return it closes the door to the hordes of parasites who come not to put money in but to suck money out.
I like it. The only thing better would be just keeping everybody out and deporting 100 million back to Liberia, Israel, Mexico, etc.
Republicans are the party of the rich and big business. They worship money. They do not care about immigration. Trump has already staunchly supported unlimited H1B visas for indentured servitude and replacement of white Americans. Trump publicly supported Musk as Musk was cursing whites in MAGA like dogs in conjunction with Vivek. Vivek is now running for hollowing out whatever is left of Ohio with Trump and Musk’s support. Conservative Inc. assured us that Trump dismissed Vivek after the H1B debacle. That was false. Trump is all talk on immigration. This administration which apparently has so much priority for gutting things people didn’t really dislike like the Consumer Protection Bureau or outright love like Social Security somehow cannot get its act together with actually deporting the tens of millions of migrants already here. This failure of Trump is casually dismissed by conservative talking heads as muh Biden. It’s Biden’s fault. Meanwhile Trump is waving tarriffs around exacerbating inflation while refusing to address the fundamental causes of why America offshored labor in the first place, because that would just lead back to Musk cursing Americans for being lazy and worthless for not working 90 hour weeks with no federal holidays. So, inflation is climbing again. Trump is also flip flopping on Ukraine by reconstructing the mineral deal as shadow financing of Ukraine’s military activities and now is clearly setting up Putin to fail which will only irritate him and prolong the conflict.
In the worst moments of the Biden admin I used to wish for some Republican leadership if not only to counteract the Democrats and gridlock the system. Now I remember bitterly how terrible this party is. Nothing but snakes and liars. If we are “winning by winning” then I have to wonder who you mean by “we.”
Idea is stupid.
There won’t be that many takers.
You can get citizenship in dozens of countries for less than 500k, with very low, if any, taxes.
Yeh, get American citizenship so you can pay taxes on any income, globally.
America just isn’t that desirable.
“Give me your tireless, your rich, your dispersed few yearning to be tax free..”
Hardly Emma Lazarus, but it’s surely in keeping with the spirit of this New Gilded Age.
Lots of countries already sell citizenship outright for a fixed fee and it can be negotiated in many others. It’s a competitive market and I guess Trump wants a piece of the action. The more attractive ones to the very wealthy are obviously the offshore jurisdictions with lenient tax regimes. A country with no income tax ought to be right up there. I hope a few of these golden citizenship tickets will be offered in candy bars.
https://financebuzz.com/countries-selling-citizenship
Today’s edition is the Gelded Age,
We need specialist in healthcare who are the best, if anything the 1964 act did was improving if you need a Brain or Heart surgeon,
With some merit you win with muds,
Even the rest of World gets this with Elite Doctors
Get a Grip on Reality!
Win
WHITE HOUSE: “President Trump announces a new immigration “Gold Card” that will be sold to immigrants for $5 million.”
HUNTER WALLACE: “On the other hand, the Gold Card really does underscore the fact that we have become a plutocracy, so much so that we are throwing out the welcome mat for the world’s plutocrats.”
Great. So, we can’t even make our own plutocrats anymore? So, we’ve got to even import plutocracy? I mean what could be wrong with importing a million slanty eyed, black skinned, turban wearing, camel riding, golden necklaced Julios? They are the same as our plutocrats right? All plutocrats are brothers under the skin, correcto?
Question to Hunter: Would you entrust your children to Elon Musk or Salmon Bin Saud?
Just when you thought America couldn’t become more crass and barbaric you hear our would be national savior is willing to sell American citizenship to the highest foreign bidder. You know the Republic has ended when it starts selling its citizenship to Attila the Hun.
Mark my words, this is the point in the calendar when you will look back and see Trump’s support started to erode with the public. Trump was popular not because we agreed with him, but because he agreed with us. But, when you move your objectives from deporting millions of illegals, to trying to gut the Defense Department to selling Gold Cards to the world’s worst people, and do it all in the first 30 days are so, you start to deflate the good will earned from the election.
We elected Trump to deal with Foreign Influence. Whether foreign financiers running our multinational businesses or, immigrants taking our tech production or, illegals taking our common labor, the idea was to end it. Selling Gold Cards to foreigners is exactly opposite of American First. Now we are all gonna hear the Gay Grand Inquisitor say “I told you so, now vote the N@gger Gimp as President.”
The only thing that will retard this descent is the Democrats continuing to say more woke craziness to scare Americans more than the idea that Cartel Lords are buying Gold Cards and citizenship. All the Democrats have to do is drop the N@ggers, Diversity, Baby Murdering, and Genital Mutilating talking points instead supporting nationalist populism and Trump will disintegrate on his own.
Literally, having Lutnick the Jew get up there talking like a Jewish Wall Street Con Artist selling Gold Cards to Latino Cartel Princelings was the biggest own the DR could have on Hunter and I. We now will have to look forward to them endlessly bleating about Lutnick selling Gild Cards and how its paying for his grandchildren’s Bar Mitzvah. Gee, thanks Donald.
If POTUS is reading this he needs to not give into Gemini Sign impulsive and disorganized tendencies. Stop listening to Wall Street Financiers, listen to the Rednecks like us. Selling Gold Cards now is literally embarrassing. Stop this immediately.
This was one of your funniest posts. I actually agree with the points you’re making here, but this line must have been in the back of my brain when I first read about this latest scam from Trump.
> Great. So, we can’t even make our own plutocrats anymore? So, we’ve got to even import plutocracy?
Hell, at least in the Gilded Age Brad likes to write about we had our own home-grown plutocrats and most of them were even white folks: Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, J. P. Morgan (yes I know he was mainly a front-man), Carnegie, etc.
I suppose the Trump and Lutnick show wants Plutocrat Pajeets and Nigerians who made a fortune on scamming old folks with the cognitive abilities of Joey out of all their hard-earned money. (As an aside to any prospective Nigerian Bernie Madeoffs out there – Joey is a very fat and juicy target you need to set your boys to work over).
The onky thing that will be accomplished in thus administration is tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. Just like his first term. That is the election Elon bought.
None of this… Joy Reid, or the going-nowhere EOs Trump signed means anything. This is catnip for the stupids. Trump & Elon know these EOs are worthless.
They have deported fewer illegals than Biden & now they’ll import massive H1B pajeets & oligarchs to cash in on their cheap labor, and ours.
No tax on tips? Sure why not. The lower middle classes will all be working for tips if these pigs & the worthless Republican Party…. All of them…. Have their way.
Should have voted for the middle class tax cut, insulin remaining at $8.00 & 6K per white child born. Eggs are for the rich.
How right you are.
This is obviously “winning by winning.”
Only for curiosity, have you ever seen this??
https://youtu.be/lAT7DkeXKxI?si=PSg6H9sZN_Ve-b2R
Anyone with $5 Million to play around with can fly into the US and pitch their tent. Why buy a “Gold Card”? Buy a vacation home in the US instead.
Crazy, man, crazy.
Citizenship should be for our people only. Those who would sell it betray our people.