At what point does the argument that the other side is also doing something cease to be an accepted excuse? The 2024 presidential election has seen a continuation of the rise in influence of already outsized billionaire donors into the US political process that threatens to make the quaint notion of one person appear hopelessly naïve.
Timothy Mellon, heir to the famous Mellon banking family fortune, has spent $165 million on political contributions this election cycle, according to recent media reports. Included in that whopping amount is $125 million to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC titled MAGA Inc. For those who support the populist reforms touted by Trump and his America First movement, seeing an entity called MAGA Inc. being inundated with old-line establishment banking money should be more than a bit disconcerting. But progressives do not help the cause of campaign finance reform they so devoutly claim to long for by painting the problem as simply a Republican one.
Venture Capitalists to Kamala: This Is What We Want
The party coup that saw President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign tossed into the trash like a five-day-old slice of leftover pizza and Vice President Kamala Harris elevated to take his place without having received so much as one vote in a primary highlighted the top-heavy dominant nature of the Democrat ruling apparatus. This anti-grassroots power structure is also fully reflected in the way big-money Democrat donors demand that their personal views be reflected in the party platform.
Silicon Valley “[v]enture capitalists pledging support for Kamala Harris' White House campaign listed priorities in a survey released on [Aug. 28] that include women's reproductive rights, climate change and a friendlier stance toward startups,” Reuters reported.
Regular Americans are worried sick about runaway crime, the illegal alien crisis, and the price of food. Those with plenty of money have the luxury of being able to focus on their own personal social agenda.
“Of about 800 venture capitalists who signed an open letter of support, 225 chose to detail their reasons for endorsing the Democratic candidate and the policies they favor in a survey,” Reuters detailed. “Nearly all of the 225 thought it was a mistake for the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which recognized abortion rights.”
The survey shows a startling conformity of thought among the trendy moneyed Big Tech crowd. Yet progressives are quick to assail Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) for his ties to Silicon Valley multi-billionaire Peter Thiel.
“The open letter, called ‘VCs for Kamala’ and disclosed in July, includes such venture capitalists as Reid Hoffman from Greylock and Vinod Khosla from Khosla Ventures,” Reuters continues. “The 225 who filled out the survey did so anonymously. They were 62% men, 66% white, largely aged 35 to 64. Although no one was asked to provide party affiliation, among those who self-disclosed, 70% were Democrats and 30% were Republicans or independents, the poll organizers said.”
The billion-dollar question, of course, is how dependent have our politicians become on all this well-heeled donor largesse?
Dueling Donors: ‘Arms Race Among Oligarchs’
“The people responsible for funding a sixth of the 2024 election could fit inside an Olive Garden restaurant,” is the apt way Barron’s writer Joe Light described it in an Aug. 23 report.
“Campaigns this election season have raised roughly $7.2 billion, with the top 100 donors pitching in $1.2 billion, according to campaign-finance tracker OpenSecrets,” Light adds. “The contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump – and the hundreds of down-ballot races in Congress – is on track to be one of the most expensive campaigns ever. It is being increasingly bankrolled by a handful of billionaires and some hundred millionaires seeking to bend the US and the regulations that govern it to their will.”
This is how the needs of the American people get ignored.
“We have this arms race among oligarchs, and both parties out of necessity have had to embrace this culture,” Scott Greytak, director of advocacy for Transparency International US, “an anticorruption group that supports increasing donor disclosure,” told Light.
Alas, Light frames his otherwise persuasive account in that same tired, fractured progressive lens noted above. He quotes an activist that asserts climate change is not atop the political agenda in the US because billionaire donors are calling the shots. Even the most cursory examination of that elitist-driven exotic movement reveals how ridiculous such a statement is.
No, the truth is more simple and hits far closer to home. The back-breaking cost of supermarket staples for everyday Americans is not dominating the political agenda in this country today because a select group of moneyed donors working both sides of the red-blue aisle are paying to have their concerns take precedence among the elected officials they lavish money upon.
