In O. Henry’s famous short story “The Gift of the Magi,” Della sells her hair to buy Jim a watch chain. Jim sells his watch to buy Della combs for her hair. Two people with nothing give up the only things they have - for each other. The irony is that Jim now has no watch for the chain and Della no hair for the combs, which emphasizes a love story about sacrifice and devotion.
Now picture the MAGA version...
The true believer sells his savings to buy DJT stock. That stock once traded above $80 after its launch. Today it scrapes around $8 - while the company nursed a $700 million net operating loss in 2025 on negligible revenue.
Another believer empties his wallet into the $TRUMP meme coin. It launched at $7 in January 2025, rocketed to over $70 on pure hype, then collapsed. Today it sits at about $2.
The difference from O. Henry’s story? Della and Jim sacrificed for each other.
The MAGA faithful sacrificed for Donald Trump.
And Trump, to his credit, was never pretending otherwise. When the meme coin launched, 800 million of the 1 billion tokens were retained by two Trump-affiliated entities, with only 200 million made available to the public. The house kept 80%. The faithful got the remaining 20% - while insiders got a three-year unlock schedule that let them sell into whatever price the believers pumped up.
But wait. There’s more.
One day after the TRUMP coin launched, Melania launched her own. $MELANIA hit over $13 at its peak. Today it trades at around nine cents - down 99% from that high. The faithful didn’t just give their money to Trump. They gave it to the whole family, one meme coin at a time.
And while the faithful were holding DJT and clutching their imaginary coins, Trump himself was apparently busy elsewhere.
Recent reporting reveals intensive trading activity in Trump’s own accounts - real companies, real stocks, real gains - timed with the kind of market-moving announcements only a sitting president can make. Not Truth Social. Not a meme coin. Actual enterprises with actual balance sheets.
Della sold her hair. Jim sold his watch. Trump traded Microsoft.
Consider Palantir. In the first quarter of 2026, Trump quietly bought up to $630,000 worth of Palantir stock. Weeks later, he posted on Truth Social praising the company by name and ticker, calling it a great American defense company. The stock moved. His followers, as always, got the announcement. He got his position first.
Trump’s followers thought that buying DJT or the meme coin was an act of patriotism. Meanwhile, Trump was placing his own bets in an entirely different casino - one with better odds, better information, and a house advantage that the presidency can provide. One clear example: in April 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” - hours before announcing a tariff reversal that sent markets surging.
O. Henry called his ending “the gift of the Magi” - wise men who brought precious things. He meant it with tenderness. The MAGA faithful brought precious things too. Their savings. Their retirement accounts. Their faith in a man who has made a long career of redirecting other people’s money into his own pocket.
The original Magi at least got a star to follow.
The MAGA faithful got a chart pointing straight down.
The quisling angle is that the congressional Republicans have seen all of this. The trading disclosures. The meme coins. The “great time to buy” post, followed by the tariff reversal that sent markets surging. Their response has been, by and large, silence. That is what enabling sometimes looks like - not approval, just the careful absence of objection.
Not jackboots and torchlight. Just a ticker symbol and a meme coin - and a party that looked the other way.
Della and Jim ended up poor but rich in love.
The MAGA faithful ended up just poorer.
Notes & Sources
PDF copy of the “The Gift of the Magi” - https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf
On DJT stock performance -
On DJT as a “patriot investment” / loyalty buy -
On the TRUMP meme coin token distribution (80/20 split) - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/official-trump/
On the MELANIA coin - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/melania-meme/
On Trump’s stock trading -
NBC News - “Trump ethics filing reveals thousands of stock trades tied to U.S. stocks” (May 15, 2026) https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trump-ethics-filing-reveals-thousands-trades-tied-us-stocks-rcna345197
CNBC - “Trump went big on tech stocks in first quarter of 2026, new filings show” (May 15, 2026) https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/15/trump-stock-trade-tech-oge.html
For the Palantir detail specifically -
Foreign Policy Journal (May 20, 2026) - https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2026/05/20/ethical-conundrum-trump-bought-up-to-630000-in-palantir-nasdaq-pltr-stock-then-praised-it-on-truth-social/
On Trump’s “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY” post and insider trading allegations -
Thanks for making my blood boil at 5 am. Trump is an amoral piece of trash and republican members of congress care only about keeping their jobs. He really could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it.
Incredible. This is classic Trump and if his loyal “Magats “ are that stupid to blindly follow I have no sympathy. It’s the administration as a whole I have contempt for. Allowing him to continue to do this, unchecked in power, no guardrails or justice, with no end in sight.