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      How rightwing beliefs shape your view of the past – while leftwingers look to the future

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      The division between right and left around the world has rarely felt more polarised. Of course there have always been differences between people on the different ends of the political spectrum, but now it seems they are living in different worlds entirely. This is perhaps related to the tendency for those on the right to focus on the past and to strive for a world that once was and the tendency for those on the left to do the opposite.

      Take two of the most famous political slogans of recent times: Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” and Donald Trump’s “Make America great again”. While Obama’s message evokes glimpses of a prosperous future, Trump’s expresses a nostalgic outlook towards the past.

      In the UK, the successful Brexit campaign, which was largely led by conservatives, famously called on people to “take back control”, while the Labour party has just launched its local election campaign under the slogan “Britain’s future”.

      The pattern is similar around the world. In South Africa, the rightwing Freedom Front Plus has recently carried the slogan “Stop the decay”. For the upcoming presidential elections in Mexico, the leftwing National Regeneration Movement is mobilising voters with “United for the transformation”.

      In a recent study, I explored whether, within the general public, people on the right evaluate the past, present, and future differently compared to people on the left. I asked a sample of 1,200 people to judge different periods of history.

      They were asked about the period from 1950 to 2000, the present day and the near future (by giving their view on what society would look like in 25 years). I drew participants from the US, UK, Italy, South Africa, Mexico and Poland – countries with different economies, cultures and political regimes.

      Labour looks to the future.
      Alamy

      In every country, rightwingers evaluated the recent past more positively than leftwingers. In the US, Poland and the UK, by contrast, leftwingers were more optimistic about what humanity could achieve in the near future.

      Interestingly, the effect on the left did not emerge in Italy, Mexico, and South Africa. Therefore, while the right’s more positive view of the past seems to be shared across countries, the left’s higher optimism does not.

      The glorious past

      In one experiment for the study, a group of participants was prompted to look more favourably to the past. These participants did not appear to be more open to rightwing opinions after having done so. This suggests that the connection does not run in this direction. Being more nostalgic about the past does not predispose people to endorse rightwing beliefs.

      On the other hand, another experiment encouraged a group of participants to freely reflect on their political opinions. Rightwing participants from this group became more nostalgic about the past when given this prompt.

      Leftwing participants became less so. This suggests that endorsing rightwing opinions at the start leads people to be more nostalgic, while endorsing leftwing opinions does the opposite.

      One last experiment explored nostalgia in more detail. Here I considered two potential forms of nostalgia. Some people may be nostalgic about traditional communities, about the old hierarchical order, about stronger family ties and about traditional culture. Other people may be nostalgic about the state of the economy, hearkening back to a time when governments tended to intervene more.

      Is the right nostalgic about tradition, the economy, or both? In my experiment, it was people on the left, not the right, who were more nostalgic about the economy. Those on the right had greater nostalgia for tradition.

      The data does also show that the economic nostalgia on the left is not as strong as the nostalgia for tradition on the right, explaining why the right can, overall, be considered more nostalgic than the left.

      These findings help explain why it’s so common for rightwing politicians to appeal to voters with promises to take them back to the good old days, and for leftwing slogans to mobilise voters towards building a better future – and perhaps offers lessons to those politicians who’d like to reach across the divide. More

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      Republicans propose renaming Dulles airport after Trump as ‘symbol of freedom’

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      Dulles airport should be renamed for Donald Trump, a Republican co-sponsor of a bill to do so said, because there would be “no better symbol of freedom, prosperity and strength”.Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania told Fox News Digital: “In my lifetime, our nation has never been greater than under the leadership of President Donald J Trump.“As millions of domestic and international travelers fly through the airport, there is no better symbol of freedom, prosperity and strength than hearing ‘Welcome to Trump international airport’ as they land on American soil.”The bill stands no chance of becoming law, given Democratic control of the Senate and White House, but it could cause embarrassment if Republican House leaders give it a vote. Reschenthaler is chief deputy whip.Dulles is a major international airport in Virginia, not far from central Washington DC. It is named for John Foster Dulles, who was US secretary of state under a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, between 1953 and 1959.Trump was president between 2017 and 2021, leaving office amid the Covid pandemic and with the US Capitol strewn with smashed glass and human feces after his supporters attacked it, a riot meant to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory and now linked to nine deaths and more than 1,200 arrests.Notwithstanding a second impeachment for inciting an insurrection, 88 criminal charges (for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments) and multimillion-dollar civil penalties (for tax fraud and defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”), Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden again.Reschenthaler is one of seven House Republicans listed as sponsors of the bill to rename Dulles for Trump. The others are Chuck Fleischmann and Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Barry Moore of Alabama, Troy Nehls of Texas and Michael Waltz of Florida.Moore said: “In 1998, Congress renamed the National airport in Washington after one of our great presidents, Ronald Reagan.”Reagan is actually in Virginia.Moore continued: “It is only fitting that we would do the same for another one of our greatest presidents, Donald J Trump, especially as he stands against the onslaught of weaponised government to fight for Americans like us.”Rejoinders were swift.Don Beyer, a House Democrat from Virginia, said: “One of Trump’s first acts as president was a racist Muslim ban that blocked permanent American residents from their own country. I went to Dulles to try to help innocent people caught up in the chaos. I remember grandparents detained for hours as their terrified families waited.“I remember Republicans like those who wrote this bill hiding and giving mealy mouthed responses when asked about the suffering Trump’s Muslim ban caused. They know Dulles will never be renamed after Trump. Again, that’s not the point, the point is to suck up to their Dear Leader.”Gerry Connolly, a Democrat who represents part of Dulles, said: “Donald Trump is facing [88] felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.” More

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      Mitch McConnell: I will fight isolationist Republicans for rest of Senate term

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      Mitch McConnell will spend the rest of his time in the US Senate “fighting” isolationists in his own Republican party, the longtime GOP leader said on Monday.“I’m particularly involved in actually fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party,” McConnell told WHAS, a radio station in his state, Kentucky.“And some in the other as well. And the symbol of that lately is: are we going to help Ukraine or not? I’ve got this sort of on my mind for the next couple years as something I’m going to focus on.”McConnell, 82, has led Republicans in the Senate for 17 years. In March, he said he would step down at the end of this year, after an election in which Republicans have a good chance of retaking the chamber.McConnell assured his decision to step down was not related to recent health scares and said he would stay to the end of his term in 2027.Isolationism has surged in the Republican party under Donald Trump, president between 2017 and 2021 and the presumptive nominee again for November’s election.The Senate did pass a foreign aid package containing new support for Ukraine in its war with Russia but it remains stalled in the House, where a Trump supporter, Mike Johnson, is speaker.McConnell entered the Senate when Ronald Reagan was president and is an old-fashioned Republican foreign policy hawk. Under his leadership, however, 26 of 49 Republicans voted against the Senate foreign aid bill, which also contained support for Israel and Taiwan.McConnell said his fellow Kentucky Republican, Rand Paul, “would be the first one to say that he’s an isolationist”. Other loud voices for Trump’s “America first” approach include JD Vance, the first-term senator from Ohio reportedly under consideration to be named Trump’s running mate.Identifying “the most dangerous time for the free world since right [before] the Berlin Wall fell down”, McConnell told WHAS: “What’s made [Republican isolationism] more troublesome is, it seems to me, others are heading in that direction, making arguments that are easily refuted.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’re not losing any of our troops – the Ukrainians are the ones doing the fighting. If the Russians take Ukraine, some Nato country would be next and then we will be right in the middle of it.”Asked if he had spoken to Trump – who he endorsed in March – McConnell said: “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the Senate.”Of the presidential election, McConnell said the Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden, had “got problems, too”.“Both these candidates don’t score very well with the public,” McConnell said. “One of them’s going to win. What am I going to do? I’m going to concentrate on trying to turn my job over to the next majority leader.” More

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr calls Biden ‘much worse threat to democracy’ than Trump

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      After Donald Trump said that he loved how Robert F Kennedy Jr was running for president, the independent candidate called Joe Biden “a much worse threat to democracy” than Trump, citing the Biden White House’s involvement in a US supreme court case focused on social media.A noted anti-vaxxer who has peddled conspiracy theories, Kennedy currently faces an uphill task to get on enough state ballots, though on Monday his campaign said his name would appear on the ballot in the crucial state of North Carolina.Both the Republican and Democratic parties have increasingly seen Kennedy as a threat in the November election over fears that he could siphon off enough votes to swing the election. It remains unclear whose support base Kennedy might tap into. Historically a Democrat with a strong environmental record, Kennedy has drifted rightwards on various issues and his anti-vaccine views could attract Trump supporters.Kennedy’s remarks in an interview on CNN on Monday centered on the pending supreme court case Murthy v Missouri, which tests the limits of how much the government can pressure social media companies to remove content.The case comes out of efforts by the Biden administration to push social media platforms to take down false posts about the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election that Biden won and which Trump has consistently lied was stolen from him.In oral arguments before the court last month, justices appeared skeptical of arguments in favor of limiting contacts between government officials and social media companies, a practice known as “jawboning” that some argue is tantamount to censorship.Kennedy told CNN that Biden “has used the federal agencies to censor political speech”.“I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history, that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech … to censor his opponent,” Kennedy told the outlet.He did not address the more than 80 criminal charges pending against Trump for trying to forcibly overturn the outcome of his defeat to Biden, improperly retaining classified government materials after the Republican left the White House and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has claimed to have engaged in extramarital sex with him.Kennedy also did not address the multimillion-dollar civil penalties Trump is facing for business practices deemed fraudulent or a rape claim that a judge has determined to be substantially true.Kennedy is averaging close to 10% in polling from the Hill/Decision Desk HQ. That makes him the highest polling third-party candidate in a presidential race since the businessman Ross Perot in 1992, according to the Hill, citing a RealClearPolitics national average analysis.The Democratic national committee on Monday excoriated Kennedy for his remarks about the Democratic incumbent.“With a straight face Robert F Kennedy Jr said that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump because he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories online,” Mary Beth Cahill, a Democratic national committee senior adviser, said in a statement.Cahill accused Kennedy of merely seeking to be a “spoiler candidate” and – referring to Trump’s Make America great again slogan – said he pushed “his Maga talking points in prime time”.Cahill said there was “no comparison” between Biden and Trump, whose supporters mounted the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol in early 2021. She also alluded to how Trump has promised to be dictator on “day one” if returned to the presidency.Notably, as NBC pointed out, Cahill previously served as chief of staff for Kennedy’s uncle, the late US senator Ted Kennedy.Her remarks criticizing Kennedy came after other members of his family had visited the White House to celebrate St Patrick’s Day without him.His interview on CNN came a few days after Trump – in a rare show of political equilibrium – joined Democrats in attacking Kennedy’s nascent candidacy, casting him as a liberal in disguise who was more “radical left” than Biden.But Trump also made it a point to say he supported Kennedy’s campaign because he was likely to divert more votes from Biden than from him.“It’s great for Maga,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “I love that he is running!” More

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      Biden faces test in Wisconsin as Gaza supporters call for ‘uninstructed’ vote

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      Voters in Wisconsin cast their ballots today in an election that will test voter enthusiasm for Joe Biden and Donald Trump – and potentially enshrine two amendments in the state constitution affecting election administration across the state.The president and former president are already the presumptive nominees and will almost certainly face off in the general election in November, and it seems that the threat of prosecution, general unpopularity and advanced age can’t stop them.But while the primary will not offer alternative candidates, a group of activists in Wisconsin see it as an opportunity to push Biden on his policy toward Israel’s war on Gaza. The organizers, inspired by Michigan’s “uncommitted” campaign, which garnered more than 100,000 votes there, are calling on voters to choose “uninstructed” instead of Biden.“The margins of our elections are so incredibly close – less than 1% in the last two presidential election cycles – so I think it would behoove the administration to pay attention,” said Reema Ahmad, the lead organizer of the Listen to Wisconsin campaign.Organizers with the campaign aim to turn out as many voters for “uninstructed” as Biden’s margin of victory in 2020 to demonstrate their critical role in November, Ahmad said. The campaign has relied on the support of a broad network of progressive organizations, including the state’s largest network of Latino voters, Voces de la Frontera Action and Black Leaders Organizing Communities (Bloc), groups that helped propel Biden to his narrow 2020 victory.Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York also hold presidential primaries today, and voters in Arkansas and Mississippi will participate in primary runoffs. Voters in Rhode Island and Connecticut will also have an “uncommitted” option on the ballot, and in New York, pro-Palestine activists are encouraging voters to leave their presidential primary options blank in protest.The Trump campaign faces no similar challenge within the party, making Republican discontent with him harder to gauge. On 6 March, the former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, whose campaign gave anti-Trump Republicans a means to show their frustration with him, dropped out, and Trump snapped up enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination less than a week later. Haley and four other Republicans will still appear on the Wisconsin ballot alongside Trump.Brandon Scholz, a retired Wisconsin GOP strategist, said primary turnout could lend some insight into how both candidates will fare in November. In 2020, Biden clawed back parts of the country that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 – especially in the suburbs, and especially suburban women. Biden also benefited from strong support from Black and Latino voters – groups that recent polls show could be slipping away from him.“You want to do what you can to turn your base – your hardcore Dems and your hardcore Republicans, you want to be able to get them to the polls, because the last thing you want to do is come out looking like you didn’t do anything,” Scholz said.Whether or not the Trump campaign will mobilize voters outside the Maga movement is another question.“Observers will look to see what sort of participation traditional Republicans will have in this primary,” said Scholz. “And then finally, for both campaigns what are the ‘double haters’ going to do?”Also on the ballot in Wisconsin are two constitutional amendments that voting rights and government watchdog groups warn could have a negative impact on elections administration in the state.The first proposed amendment, which would ban elections offices from accepting private grant money to fund their operations, comes amid GOP anxieties – and election-denying conspiracy theories – about the role of funding from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Center for Tech and Civic Life. During the 2020 election, the Facebook co-founder and his wife used funding from their organization to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in polling places and send voters information during the 2020 election.The donations from Center for Tech and Civic Life became a key focus of Republicans, many of them activists who questioned the results of the 2020 election. “Zuckerbucks”, they argue, unfairly benefited Democratic strongholds – although there is no evidence that the grants, which reached small and large municipalities across the state, played a role in Biden’s victory.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe second proposed amendment would enshrine in the state constitution a provision that already exists in Wisconsin statute, mandating that “only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums”.Both proposals were passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature, which sent them to voters after the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, vetoed them. And both, worries Debra Cronmiller, the executive director of Wisconsin’s League of Women Voters, could hurt voters.“There’s no guarantee that the election will be funded fully in the absence of outside money,” said Cronmiller, of the proposal to ban elections offices from accessing private grants. Without sufficient funding – and the state legislature has not proposed additional resources to elections offices – she argued towns and counties are forced to hire fewer poll workers and host fewer polling locations, causing longer lines and a slower tally of the votes and disproportionately impacting poorer and smaller towns.“They might not have the opportunities that a bigger municipality, that has deeper pockets, might have in order to serve their citizens,” she said.The second proposed amendment, Cronmiller and other elections experts and voter advocates say, could prevent non-profits and other third-party groups from assisting voters in critical ways during elections. Groups that assist in driving voters to the polls, provide residents with information about voter registration, or help in the recruitment of poll workers, for example, could find themselves facing legal challenges for their work.“We’re all scratching our heads and wondering: is this allowed? If this passes, and if we don’t do those things, how do voters get to the polls?” said Cronmiller.“Is this a way to suppress the vote?” More

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr claims he qualifies for ballot in swing state North Carolina

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate for the US presidency, said on Monday he has qualified for the ballot in North Carolina – which will be a key state in the November election battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.“We have the field teams, volunteers, legal teams, paid circulators, supporters and strategists ready to get the job done,” said Kennedy’s campaign press secretary, Stefanie Spear.Kennedy, 70, is an environmental lawyer turned vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist who has campaigned with reference to his famous family – his father was the US attorney general and New York senator Robert F Kennedy and his uncle was John F Kennedy, the 35th president.Kennedy Jr now says he has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in five states, the others being Utah, New Hampshire, Hawaii and Nevada.Only Utah has confirmed his place on its ballot. Nevada is also a battleground state, but Kennedy’s ballot access may be in question there, as he secured it before naming his running mate.That announcement last week saw Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year-old tech lawyer, join the Kennedy ticket.Polling generally shows Biden and Trump closely matched and Kennedy clear of other candidates outside the major parties, enjoying double-digit support, with the potential to act as a spoiler.Debate continues about whether Biden or Trump stands to lose most votes to Kennedy. Democrats have historical reason to be fearful, given recent election results.In 2000, Ralph Nader took votes from Al Gore as the former vice-president was beaten by George W Bush in a contentious, knife-edge election that came down to a legally contested result in Florida. In 2016, Jill Stein showed strongly as Hillary Clinton lost narrowly to Trump in a number of battleground states.The Biden campaign has created a team dedicated to countering Kennedy. In that vein, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee recently claimed Republicans were “working to prop up third-party candidates like Robert Kennedy Jr to make them stalking horses for Donald Trump”, adding: “We’re going to make sure voters are educated and we’re going to make sure all candidates are playing by the rules.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s campaign has also trumpeted endorsements from Kennedy family members.On Monday, Kennedy’s sister, Rory Kennedy, told MSNBC: “I love my brother, and it pains me to come out against him, but I am very concerned with the stakes in this election, and I’m very concerned from the polls I’m seeing that he takes many more votes from Biden than he does from Trump.“And I think this election is going to come down to a handful of votes in a handful of states, and I’m concerned that his campaign and running for office as an independent is going to lead to Trump’s election.“And I feel that that will be catastrophic, honestly, for not just our country, but for the world. So, I feel that the stakes couldn’t be higher, frankly. So, you know, I would love more than anything to sit out on the sidelines on this one and not be in this position, but I don’t feel like I can do that.” More

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      Extremist ex-adviser drives ‘anti-white racism’ plan for Trump win – report

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      The anti-immigration extremist, white nationalist and former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.In 2021, an AFL suit blocked implementation of a $29bn Covid-era Small Business Administration programme that prioritised helping restaurants owned by women, veterans and people from socially and economically disadvantaged groups.Miller called that ruling “the first, but crucial, step towards ending government-sponsored racial discrimination”.Recent AFL lawsuits include one against CBS and Paramount alleging discrimination against a white, straight man who wrote for the show Seal Team, and a civil rights complaint against the NFL over the “Rooney Rule”, which says at least two minority candidates must be interviewed for vacant top positions.Reports of extremist groups planning for a second Trump presidency are common, not least around Project 2025, a blueprint for transition and legislative priorities prepared by the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right Washington thinktank.Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told Axios: “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to [Joe] Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated.”Throughout Trump’s term in office, Miller was a close adviser and speechwriter – though one of the 45th president’s less successful TV surrogates, ridiculed for using “spray-on hair”.Controversies were numerous. Among them were reported advocacy for blowing up migrants with drones (which Miller denied); for sending 250,000 US troops to the southern border; and for beheading an Isis leader, dipping the head in pig’s blood and “parad[ing] it around to warn other terrorists” (Miller denied it and called the source of the story, the former defense secretary Mark Esper, a “moron”).In 2019, after Miller was discovered to have touted white nationalist articles and books, 55 civil rights groups wrote to Trump, protesting: “Stephen Miller has stoked bigotry, hate and division with his extreme political rhetoric and policies throughout his career. The recent exposure of his deep-seated racism provides further proof that he is unfit to serve and should immediately leave his post.”On Monday, Cedric Richmond, co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, said: “It’s not like Donald Trump has been hiding his racism … [but] he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy … It’s up to us to stop him.”Despite his legal advocacy in the cause of eradicating “anti-white racism”, Miller is not himself a lawyer.Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer, recently told the Guardian those close to the former president were now “looking for lawyers who worship Trump and will do his bidding. Trump is looking to Miller to pick people who will be more loyal to Trump than the rule of law.” More

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      Trump’s stake in Truth Social falls by $1bn after company reveals $58m loss

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      The value of Donald Trump’s stake in Truth Social fell by more than $1bn on Monday after the social media company revealed it lost $58.2m last year and an auditor disclosed “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating.Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, dropped 21.5% as investors scrutinized the fundamentals of its business.The former president’s vast stake in the firm was worth about $4.88bn on paper after its extraordinary stock market debut last week . After Monday’s sell-off, it was valued at about $3.83bn.Trump Media generated sales of just $4.13m in 2023, according to regulatory filings.While over $4m in sales marks significant growth from $1.47m in 2022, the previous year, it underlines the small scale of Trump Media’s operation – and the depth of its losses.BF Borgers of Colorado, an auditor for the company, said the losses “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern”, according to Monday’s filings.Trump Media separately acknowledged that it could be “subject to greater risks” than other social media platforms “because of the focus of our offerings and the involvement of President Trump”.Shares in the group – and Digital World Acquisition, the shell company with which it merged last week to go public – have been surging since the turn of the year.The company has a similar valuation to Reddit, a social network that also went public last month. Reddit generated sales of $804m in 2023, according to regulatory filings, and losses of $90.8m.Net losses at Trump Media came to $58.2m in 2023. Stripping out interest expenses on its debt, the firm posted operating losses of $16m, down slightly from $23.2m in 2022.A volatile market surge over recent months has nevertheless transformed Trump Media into a so-called meme stock, boosted by internet memes – posted, in its case, on platforms including Truth Social – urging retail investors to buy into it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt has joined a small bevy of stocks, most famously the video games retailer GameStop, which rattled Wall Street by staging unexpected, turbulent rallies in recent years. Maintaining momentum after the initial surge has often proved challenging.Trump has a vast stake in Trump Media, and its arrival on the market has netted him a multibillion-dollar paper fortune. When it finally combined with Digital World last Monday, Bloomberg said the former president had joined the ranks of the world’s 500 wealthiest people for the first time.He is currently unable to offload his stake, however, and will need the stock to continue to trade at the levels to which it has surged in recent months if he is to raise billions of dollars from a sale.Trump, who is vying to regain the presidency from Joe Biden in November’s election, is grappling with hefty legal costs. He is on the hook for $454m after a civil fraud case, although the former president was recently thrown a lifeline when a panel of appellate court judges provided him with 10 days to secure a far smaller $175m bond.John Rekenthaler, vice-president for research at Morningstar, recently argued Trump Media was akin to a cryptocurrency. “As with bitcoin, people buy Trump Media not for future cash flows but because: 1) they expect its price to rise, and 2) they feel an affiliation for the asset,” he wrote. For Trump Media investors, “DJT shares represent a currency by which they can express their beliefs and commitment.” More