RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/18/trump-is-dividing-americas-oligarchs/

The shot heard around the world may have been aimed at Donald Trump’s head, but it could also put extra cash in his pocket. In the aftermath of last weekend’s assassination attempt, two prominent billionaires – Elon Musk and investor Bill Ackman – announced their support for the former president. Two other formerly Trump-sceptical billionaires, Paul Singer and Ken Griffin, are also reportedly considering joining them.

The importance of these endorsements, as well as others from both Wall Street and Silicon Valley, reflect America’s increasingly oligarch-dominated political system. Traditionally, populist Democrats would have made much more of the announcements. In 2018, Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse claimed Trump was in the ‘back pocket’ of billionaires, but the attack didn’t quite land – not least because Whitehouse himself and his Democratic allies have become major recipients of oligarchic funds. Democrats received far more ‘dark money’ than the GOP in 2020.

Even recently, a spokesman suggested that Joe Biden was sending the message that ‘America is not for sale’. That is despite the fact that in 2020 Biden easily outraised Trump with a major advantage from donors in Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, just as Hillary Clinton had done in 2016. While some Democrats posture about seeking to reduce oligarchic power, they equally want to ensure that it’s their oligarchs who thrive.

None of this is to say that Trump was previously lacking his own reliable trove of right-wing donors. Investors like Jeff Yass and Timothy Mellon have given tens of millions to his campaigns. Trump donors tend to be rich investors who are in control of their own funds and less beholden to shareholders or a board of directors. In contrast, big corporate elites have, at least until now, favoured the Democrats and Biden. They have done this through contributions not only to Democratic candidates, but also to left-leaning nonprofits.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/20/donald-trump-and-baby-hitler/

In November 2015, when he was still the presumed frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Jeb did an impromptu online Q&A while on his campaign bus. Among the questions he was asked was whether he “would go back in time and kill baby Hitler.” “Hell yeah, I would,” he responded immediately. And he would do so, he said, because “you gotta step up.” His only objection—or at least the only one he voiced in front of the cameras—was the butterfly effect, that is to say, the presumption that such a small change in history would have enormous future ramifications, the science for which he said “we all learned” from those “Michael Fox movies…Back to the Future.”

This answer raises two questions. First, why would Jeb answer that way? This is a guy, remember, who was raised in a very WASP-ish patrician home, was educated at the finest prep schools and one of the best public universities in the country, and converted to Catholicism. If he, of all people, thinks that the answer is an immediate “hell yeah,” then we have to ask ourselves why that is the case.

The second question is: why would anyone ask such a stupid thing anyway? Obviously, time travel is not possible, Back to the Future notwithstanding. So why would it even cross anyone’s mind to question a former governor and presidential candidate about the possibility of doing so? Where do people come up with these things?