In the 2020 presidential election cycle, more than $14bn went to federal candidates, party committees, and Super Pacs – double the $7bn doled out in the 2016 cycle. Total giving in 2024 is bound to be much higher.
That money is not supporting US democracy. If anything, that money is contributing to rising Trumpism and neofascism.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As more and more wealth concentrates at the top, the moneyed interests rationally fear that democratic majorities will take it away through higher taxes, stricter regulations (on everything from trade to climate change), enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, pro-union initiatives and price controls.
Trump has publicly vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Joe Biden and his family, and has told advisers and friends that he wants the justice department to investigate officials who have criticized his time in office.
Charles Kushner (family net worth of $1.8bn), the real estate mogul and father of Jared, who received a late-term pardon from Trump in December 2020, contributed $1m in June.
Peter Thiel, the multibillionaire tech financier who once wrote that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” contributed more than $35m to 16 federal-level Republican candidates in the 2022 campaign cycle, making him the 10th largest individual donor to either party.
Twelve of Thiel’s candidates won, including Ohio’s now-senator JD Vance, who alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy has meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country”.
A loud pro-democracy movement that fights against concentrated wealth at the top, humongous CEO pay packages, a politically powerful financial sector, and tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations.
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