Venture capital asshole receives large donation from even richer venture capital asshole to fake being a populist
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Peter Theil helps out his ideological soul mate:
Silicon Valley iconoclast Peter Thiel is placing the biggest political bet of his career, pumping $10 million into a super PAC that is supporting a former Thiel aide who may run for the US Senate in Ohio.
Thiel has cut a check of just over $10 million to an outside group backing J.D. Vance, the author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, a much bigger contribution than he made to support Donald Trump and Thiel’s largest disclosed political donation ever. Vance is one of several people in Thiel’s network who have weighed Senate bids in recent years and stand to benefit substantially from their ties to the billionaire investor.
The donations are the latest display of how Thiel is cultivating a network of young, populist, Ivy League-educated proteges and encouraging them to run for Senate all around the country.
Um, could we please have a permanent moratorium on uncritically calling wealthy white guys with Ivy League degrees fanatically committed to upward wealth distribution “populists”? Vance, like Hawley, Cotton et al., is exactly as “populist” as, er, Peter Thiel, unless you think, say, “people poorer than me shouldn’t have access to healthcare” is a “populist” position.
Anyway, hopefully this goes as well for Thiel as his last big political investment:
And last year, Thiel focused his political energy on supporting Kris Kobach, the immigration hardliner who failed to win a GOP Senate primary in the state of Kansas. Thiel ended up donating over $2 million to a group financing Kobach’s bid.
Feel the populism!
Speaking of dismal failures, I see that apart from a token supporting actor nod the by all accounts terrible Oscar-bait movie made from Vance’s atrocious book got shut out of the major Oscar categories. Whomp-whomp.