On Tuesday, a gazillionaire named David Trone lost the Democratic Senate primary in Maryland. This loss came after Trone, the founder of Total Wine & More, shattered records for a self-funded primary campaign, spending more than $60 million of his own money on a massive advertising blitz. What did Trone, who is already a U.S. representative from Maryland, buy with this comically enormous vanity expenditure? The pleasure of delivering a three-minute concession speech Tuesday night after the county executive of Prince George’s County, Angela Alsobrooks, beat him by more than 10 points.
Here are some things David Trone could have done with that $60 million of alcohol profits that would have been more fun for him than riding around in a bus, kissing babies, and losing. He could have bought a pretty sweet private jet. He could have bought this Delray Beach palazzo, complete with Italian stonework and 15½ bathrooms. He could have bought 200 McLaren 720Ses, each of which would go from zero to 60 in 2.6 seconds. He could have lined them up and raced them! (It would be a 200-way tie.)
Whatever. He could have solved homelessness in a midsized city. He could have traveled around the world, staying in 10-star hotels everywhere he went. (There’s no such thing as a 10-star hotel, you say? Well, certainly there’s none that you know about.) He could have just sat by the pool at his own presumably impressive home in Montgomery County, drinking mai tais. But no: Having mastered the art of selling booze to desperate exurban parents, he convinced himself that he, and only he, could save the Senate.
Here’s a free idea for David Trone and other wealthy people who believe they absolutely need to keep doing stuff: Don’t! Just be rich.
Seriously, just be rich! Enjoy your money. Purchase expensive things. Take vacations with your kids. If you don’t have kids, buy some kids.
Time and time again, rich people fail to take this advice. Having achieved basically the only feat that ensures comfort and safety in our modern hellscape, they nonetheless feel compelled to get out there with their big ideas. Addicted to feeling important, surrounded by people who tell them their stupidest ideas are genius, rich people simply cannot stop launching dumb apps, or tweeting about trans people, or purchasing the Supreme Court, or running for president.
Instead of doing any of these things, they should buy swimming pools, fill them with gold coins, and hire attractive, well-paid, unionized employees to dive into them.
Look, I understand the kind of person who is likely to become rich is also likely to be ambitious, driven, and unwilling to rest on his laurels. I obviously cannot relate—I am a journalist—but OK! Teach yourself jazz flute, like André 3000. Set up a foundation to give your money away to worthy nonprofits, like Mackenzie Scott. Embark on a personal mission to have every cultural institution in America named for you, like David Geffen. Set yourself to irritating architects until your mansion is the bitchinest house in California, like this guy.
But stop doing things that make the world worse, merely because you are sociopathically convinced of your own expertise at everything. If you, let’s say, launch a media organization with no visible reason for existence that burns through $50 million in a year and a half and leaves dozens of journalists out of work without severance, don’t immediately try to launch another media organization. Consider taking a break. Because, great news: You’re rich. Just be rich!