Mother Jones illustration; Gripas Yuri/Abaca/Zuma; David Zalubowski/AP
As the finishing touches settle on Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Washington is swarming with members of this great nation preparing to kneel and lick the boot. Men and women, but mostly men, who giddily abandon any morsel of shame to gain purchase with an administration that has already clarified its intentions to impose enormous cruelty and abuse power at every turn.
Many of these tongue-on-shoers already enjoy obscene levels of wealth and power. But sitting at the edge of an era that promises to line their pockets even further, no one seems to want to be left out of the looting. Some will get prime seating at the inauguration; others will clink champagne glasses at the string of vulgar crypto parties wallpapering the city. All of the pomp and money in exchange for proximity to a racist, twice-impeached federal convict found liable for sexual abuse. He’s also the most powerful person in the world.
So how much boot can this new class of bootlickers lick? We rank them below.
Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey: collar lick
The path to the top of corporate America is littered with boots to lick. So it’s no wonder CEOs have been particularly adept, and brazen, as Trump comes back to power. But James Quincey’s recent trip to Mar-a-Lago to present Trump—a notorious Diet Coke fiend—with a ceremonial bottle deserves special recognition. Because this simply did not have to happen. It feels extraneous and weird. And yet, a bootlicker cannot resist a chance to stick out their tongue.
Tonight, President Trump received the first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle from the Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Company, James Quincey 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/IgV2pxHnxD
— Margo Martin (@margomartin) January 15, 2025
After sending a cease-and-desist letter to Trump in 2020 for using their music on the campaign trail, the Village People will now play Trump’s second inauguration. The incoming president, of course, is something of a mega-fan of the band’s biggest hit, Y.M.C.A., and is likely to break out those robotic dance moves for the performance. Will other Republicans dance too? Unfortunately yes.
“We know this won’t make some of you happy to hear, however, we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics,” read a statement from the band that also called for the country to come together after Trump’s victory.
Snoop Dogg: heel lick
Snoop Dogg, a former Hillary Clinton supporter who once called Trump a “motherfucker,” now says he has “nothing but love” for the incoming president. So much so that the rapper performed at Sunday’s Inaugural Crypto Ball in honor of Trump. That bootlicking performance included a rendition of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds (Don’t Worry About a Thing), which feels especially grim.
Eric Adams: entire sole lick
The disgraced mayor of New York, who is under federal indictment over an impressive list of corruption charges, knows what’s coming for him. So in the face of potential jail time, overwhelming unpopularity among New Yorkers, and a vanishing staff, Adams skipped out on previously planned MLK ceremonies to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday. This comes days after he flew out to Mar-a-Lago to more than likely, convince Trump to hand out a potential pardon. (A spokesperson confirmed that Adams used taxpayer money to pay for the trip.)
It’s unclear what exactly will unfold in Palm Beach. But after his indictment, Adams notably claimed, without evidence, that the criminal investigation against him was political payback for his previous criticisms of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
Jeff Bezos: a leopard-padded over-the-knee lick
From donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration to killing a Washington Post editorial endorsing Kamala Harris, Bezos’ bootlicking bona fides are many these days. But one of the most absurd to emerge is the recent announcement that Amazon Studios is producing a documentary on Melania Trump. The film, which reportedly has the incoming first lady as an executive producer, will be directed by Brett Ratner, who, in 2017, was roundly condemned over sexual harassment allegations. All in all, the project sounds like an extremely bad idea.
You might recall that Bezos once positioned himself as an opponent of Trump, especially his attacks on the media. Trump, in turn, repeatedly attacked Bezos with threats to regulate Amazon. Now Bezos, one of the richest men on earth, appears intent on plunging the Post into the very darkness the paper once warned against. It seems a massive boot right beside your face would make it hard to see the sun, it’s true.
The Meta CEO, who over the past year has undergone one of the most vile fashion evolutions, is set to play co-host to a marquee event celebrating Trump’s second inauguration. The swanky reception, which includes Miriam Adelson as a co-host, comes as the latest evidence that Zuckerberg is officially an eager supplicant at the altar of the incoming president. All this after the tech giant claimed in September to be “done with politics.” As my colleague Tim Murphy wrote in an excellent piece at the time, there is no such thing as an apolitical oligarch.
But Zuckerberg isn’t simply dressing terribly and kissing Trump’s ring, though there is something uniquely pathetic about the speed with which he seeks Trump’s favor. The Meta CEO is also subjecting his 72,000 employees around the world to the same MAGA rebrand, ending its fact-checking program and DEI initiatives, and even removing tampons from bathrooms. The consequences for an already-poisoned internet could be far-reaching.
Elon Musk and Peter Thiel: full, unending, complete bootlick
It would seem remiss to leave out these two. They are, after all, two of the most powerful tech figures of the oligarchy. But it would be misguided to label Musk and Thiel mere bootlickers. What distinguishes these men from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg is what appears to be a true devotion to the illiberal politics that power MAGA. They aren’t falling over themselves with ridiculous efforts to gain proximity to Trump. And both backed him before November 2024. (In the case of Thiel, long before.)