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The wine has flowed. Donald Trump Jr. mixed in with the guests. And Peter ThielThe tech billionaire and event host delivered a message to the well-heeled crowd: It’s time to clean the house.
Last month’s fundraising event at Mr. Thiel’s campus in Miami Beach was for a defiant conservative candidate. Representative Liz Cheney From Wyoming to be on the ballot for the November midterm elections. Ms. Cheney, one of the few Republicans to vote Impeaching President Donald J. Trump Mr Thiel said he was the face of the “traitor 10” in connection with the accusation of inciting the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, according to two people with knowledge of the incident and who were not authorized to speak publicly. He declared that they should all be replaced by conservatives loyal to the former president.
Known in 2016 as Mr. Thiel, one of the biggest donors According to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, he has re-emerged as a key financier of the Make America Great Again movement. After sitting in the 2020 presidential race, the venture capitalist is backing 16 Senate and House candidates this year, most of whom have embraced the election. Lie Mr Trump won the election.
To recruit these candidates, Mr. Thiel has given more than $20.4 million. This actually puts it and Kenneth GriffinAccording to the neutral research organization OpenSecrets, the CEO of hedge fund Citadel is tied as the largest individual donor to Republican politics this election cycle.
However, what sets Mr. Thiel’s spending apart is his focus on far-right candidates who trade in conspiracy theories that Mr. These campaigns have garnered millions of small dollars in donations, but Mr. Thiel’s wealth could accelerate the shift of views once thought to be extreme to the mainstream and make him a new power broker on the right.
If you have a funder that actively promotes candidates who deny the legitimacy of elections, it’s a direct attack on the very foundation of democracy,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow in the left-leaning New America group who works on campaign work on finance and extreme partisanship.
Mr. Thiel’s funded candidates offer a window into his ideology. While the investor is kind of cryptic, he is currently driven by a worldview where establishment and globalization have failed, current immigration policy is looting the middle class, and the country must dismantle federal institutions.
Mr. Thiel has recently started voicing his thoughts publicly, making headlines at at least six conservative and libertarian meetings where he criticizes the Chinese Communist Party and big tech companies and questions climate science. He objected to what he called “extreme dogmatism” within the founding institutions, which he said was holding the country back.
At an October dinner for the Federalist Society at Stanford University, he spoke about the “unstable society” created by “a totally unstable government,” according to a recording of the event obtained by The New York Times. He said the US is on the verge of a major correction.
“My somewhat doomsday, somewhat hopeful thinking is that we are finally at a point where things are breaking down,” said Mr. Thiel.
Mr. Thiel, 54, has not made public what he believes about the 2020 election. But three people close to the investor said they saw a ship in Mr Trump to achieve his ideological goals. The two men recently met in New York and at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. John McEnteeOne of Mr Trump’s closest aides said two people with knowledge of the deal.
Unlike traditional Republican fundraisers, who focus on gaining control of their parties over Congress and the White House, Mr. Thiel has set his sights on reshaping the Republican agenda with his anti-establishment opposition, said Stephen K. Bannon, former chairman of Mr. Trump. chief strategist.
“I don’t think it’s just about overthrowing the Senate,” said Mr Bannon, who has known Mr. Thiel since 2016. “I think Peter wants to change the direction of the country.”
Mr. Thiel’s donation is expected to make up only a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely to flow from campaigns this cycle. But the amounts he poured into individual races and the early nature of his primary donations put him on the Republican candidates’ radar.
In the past, many have wooed or wooed the billionaire Koch brothers. Sheldon Adelson, the late casino boss. This year, political strategists said they clamored for an invitation to Mr. Thiel’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, or at least discussed how to phone him.
Three Republican strategists, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said Mr. Thiel had personally reviewed the candidates. In addition harriet hagemanThe challenger to Ms. Cheney supports Joe Kent and Loren Culp, who are both running against the Washington State House of Representatives Republicans who voted to impeach Mr Trump. He also handed over to a political action committee associated with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who was not running for reelection this year.
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