Don't look now, but gold is back – in a big way.

On Friday, gold prices hit a record high, with U.S. gold futures hitting more than $2,700 an ounce and remaining near that threshold. And it's finding new traction among everyday American investors who've never looked at it before.

Gold is the big recommendation in bullish investor reports from Citibank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase (the latter previously had to pay nearly $1 billion to the government for manipulating precious metals markets). It's plastered across the vastly overpriced Trump campaign watches and found in various other merchandise. It's the hot new fashion statement for white men, with gold chains around the necks of celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Theroux. It was at the Republican National Convention. His biggest supporters are touring with Tucker Carlson. It's on the shelves of Costco, which reportedly sold up to $200 million worth of gold bars earlier this year every month– and now he's quickly running out of stuff. The precious metal is even part of a revitalized business strategy for luxury watch brands, whose yellow gold timepieces were Ryan Gosling's accessory of choice in 1999 Barbie.

Gold also appears frequently in the ads sponsoring the podcasts of far-right conspiracy theorists Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, and Candace Owens—and yes, it's also featured on Fox News and Newsmax. Plus, you can find even more on Rumble and Truth Social, where you'll find everything from “free” gold bars to collectible gold coins featuring Trump's mugshot to investing “information kits.” There's gold in Senator Bob Menendez and Sam Altman's basement. No wonder we're still mining for it beneath the hills of South Dakota.

Gold has always been an American status symbol and a fascinating object for doomsday plotters, evangelical end-timers and right-wing commentators like Glenn Beck; It's an easy lure for older retirees fearful of the savings they've accumulated over a lifetime and who have become alienated from the changing world around them, and it has always been a useful promotional opportunity for the species of radio stations and television stations that they tune in. But this moment of hype peak is particularly notable because we are not in a typical climate for such a massive, sustained rise in precious metals. Gold and silver purchases (and their prices) typically spike during times of economic conditions that don't quite match current ones: times of poor GDP prospects, low interest rates, a weak U.S. dollar, and nervous investors and consumers. Still, gold prices have remained high in line with the much-studied economic crazes of the past half-decade, even as the economy booms, interest rates remain mostly high, consumer sentiment improves dramatically and the dollar's strong value continues.

Ordinarily, the price of gold is as reliable an indicator of economic orthodoxy as any. But now it seems to be the outlier. And the irony of ironies is that Bitcoin has gone from being a standalone “digital gold” and financial hedge to just another commodity that fluctuates with stock market trends.

As the Wall Street Journal explained earlier this year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a strange trend swept the gold bug universe. Previously, most people interested in gold got their hands on physical manifestations of the metal (jewelry, doubloons, etc.), but also showed great interest in gold-backed exchange-traded funds, a simpler and more virtual way to invest their trust in the metal. However, in 2020, demand for both physical gold and ETFs reached similar levels – the following years saw significant fluctuations, with physical gold reaching new highs and ETFs plunging into complete decline. Meaning: Many gold bugs have lost their trust in the Market model for gold trading and decided to abandon it in favor of actual trading. Understandable, considering how the apocalyptic mood of the pre-vaccine era and the systemic impact of the shutdowns led more consumers to store gold as a safe reserve and hold on to it as things nervously began to recover. (Only recently have gold ETFs regained some of this lost demand.)

Another key trend of the recovery in 2021: Central banks began accumulating gold bullion in droves to hedge against the U.S. dollar, whose home government was hesitant to raise interest rates even as inflation became a problem. The ensuing “de-dollarization” panic among emerging markets, compounded by the massive global impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, made gold look even more attractive for international reserves.

Sure, the global economy was recovering, but also: everything was chaotic, the currencies of countries around the world were losing value due to inflation, the United States and its dollar no longer seemed as robust as they once were, and it collapsed wars out. Why shouldn't countries like China, Singapore, India, Zimbabwe, Poland and Turkey set aside some gold for themselves as a reward?

Financial analysts exuberantly claim that we are barely at the peak of gold's rally and could see more records in the near future as geopolitical nervousness and distrust of institutions increase mass interest in the metal. And when gold demand and gold prices rise so much, the impact is inevitable. Controversial, exploitative mines across West Africa are opening or reopening for business. Right-wing extremist propaganda organizations such as the Epoch Times (which are primarily run by Chinese expatriates) often include gold advertisements in their influence campaigns.

Traders, put off by the strange nature of this economic moment, are touting the stability of gold on financial television, just a few channels away from all the other right-wing media backed by gold sponsors – who then highlight chaotic current events to aging retirees I'm scared and wondering if everything is still safe and stable. Forget the meme stocks. is gold forever.