This. Something like 5 people are almost entirely funding Trump's slump (hard to call this mess a campaign) towards the White House and for sure they are going to want pay back. This is what oligarchy looks like.
While I am sure we would agree on the dangers posed by certain wealthy donors on both sides, the ruling of Citizen's United allows for something far more insidious - effectively a nullification of regulations set forth in a bipartisan campaign finance reform act eight years earlier (BCRA).
Essentially what we have today is a free-for-all. Any corporation can spend unlimited amounts of money (commonly referred to as "dark money") to influence politics, with virtually no oversight (i.e. FEC reporting requirements). As an individual, my ability to fund political campaigns is limited to thresholds set at the local and federal level, but a billion dollar company like FTX can give millions of dollars to politicians who put forward favorable regulations. Billion dollar AI companies will control potential future regulation in a similar manner. I'm oversimplifying here, and added some helpful links for anyone interested:
5 people? Last time I was on X, nearly every Silicon Valley/tech billionaire was crooning from the rooftops for Trump.
You could argue it's the native X bias, but these were all the famous billionaires and multimillionaires who are top names in the SV space. All rooting for a Trump win, perhaps anticipating a quick Vance presidency.
A lot talk but only a ~half dozen actually bother to put together 100s of millions where their mouths are about it. I haven't looked this year but usually Bloomberg tops the chart on the blue side.
Entirely possible - I spend as little time as possible thinking about this and am just looking forward to our national nightmare of Trump being a plausible president candidate being over the week after next.
You mean the betting markets the oligarchs have gamed? :)
Though I will agree with you that he has a coin flip chance of being president, which is totally terrifying. Is that what it felt like to be in Germany with Hitler?
I do believe that something like 70% of SV can't stand Trump. You can see that in the insane amount of money Kamala has raised from SV (which probably even dwarfs Trump's XX person oligarch haul).
It is largely the sociopaths at the very very top that are Trump donors.
SV only cares about whoever will help them make more money. Everything else is virtue signaling by champagne socialists pretending to care about current day social issues and the struggles of the lower classes.
Somebody (an SV VC actually) once gave me some advice: Silicon Valley VCs will be all nice to you in front of you but talk shit behind your back. East Coast VCs will outright tell you your product is shit and that you are shit, just like your n-th order ancestors.
Of course all of the billionaires are rooting for Trump, because they want to be in business next year. Harris will understand voting for other parties, but Trump punishes disloyalty.
> 5 people? Last time I was on X, nearly every Silicon Valley/tech billionaire was crooning from the rooftops for Trump.
From what I heard Bezos interfered with Washington Post for (one of?) the first time to make them not post on endorsing a candidate for president (first time in 36 years).
What the actual reason behind it is is unsure, but they say they wanna "return to their roots". I honestly doubt it and expect its more political interest like to not be on Trumps "land in prison because radical marxist leftist" since he didn't do anything like this in the previous years.
