Billionaire props up Trump and RFK Jr.

June 21, 2024

If there was any doubt about RFK Jr.’s status as a stalking horse to promote Donald Trump's presidential aspirations, all vestiges of such doubt evaporated on Thursday. The New York Times reported that Timothy Mellon donated $50 million to a Trump-related super PAC. Mellon previously donated $25 million to super PACs for both RFK Jr. and Trump!

The $50 million donation to Trump was made the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies for interfering in the 2020 election by falsifying documents to conceal his sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels. (Flashback: Remember when the media breathlessly and uncritically reported that Trump raised $52.8 million in the 24 hours after the guilty verdicts? We now know that $50 million came from a single donor, meaning that Trump raised only $2.8 million in “real” donations in the first 24 hours.)

Per the Times (accessible to all),

Mr. Mellon is now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election. He was already the single largest contributor to super PACs supporting both Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. Mr. Mellon has previously given $25 million to both.

It is difficult to imagine that RFK Jr.’s candidacy would still be viable but for Mellon's $25 million donation. And Trump's campaign was lagging in fundraising until the guilty verdict prompted Mellon to make the largest single political donation in American history.

In essence, a single donor is keeping the campaigns of both RFK Jr. and Trump afloat to defeat President Biden. If anyone believed that RJK Jr. was a legitimate candidate, it is unreasonable and untenable for them to hold that belief in good faith after today’s revelation.

Timothy Mellon is the heir to Andrew Mellon’s banking fortune and appears to have spent much of his life “investing” his inheritance in flaky ventures like the search for Amelia Earhart and paying for Trump's border wall to nowhere in Texas. The hard work of squandering his inheritance has made Mellon resentful of poor people, a fact he made plain in his self-published autobiography. Mellon wrote the following about “social safety net” programs (like Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act):

Mellon called social safety net programs "Slavery Redux," adding: "For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass.” Per Wikipedia, Timothy Mellon.

Ah, yes! From a perch atop a $14 billion inherited fortune, it is understandable why Mr. Mellon resents poor people being given the opportunity to purchase affordable healthcare. It makes perfect sense that he has donated $50 million to Trump, whose party has pledged to cut Social Security and Medicare—the dreaded “safety net” programs despised by Mellon.

Mellon’s support for Trump is also consistent with Mellon’s substantial financial support to defend Arizona’s first-in-the-nation anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 (passed in 2010).

Many billionaires are voting with their dollars to support Trump, who promises to extend tax cuts that favor the most affluent taxpayers. But on Thursday, the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court gave another hint regarding the motivations of the Billionaire Boys Club for supporting Trump.

It takes a bit of explaining, but here is the bottom line: Democrats have proposed a “wealth tax” to ensure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of the nation’s tax revenue. Trump—and the reactionary majority—oppose a wealth tax. The big winners in defeating a wealth tax would be beneficiaries of multi-generational fortunes like Timothy Mellon.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a tax that applied to investors in foreign corporations. Justice Kavanaugh wrote an opinion upholding the federal government’s authority to tax such investments. So far, so good. But here’s the catch: The case was brought by taxpayers hoping to convince the Court to rule that wealth taxes are unconstitutional.

Although the majority did not take that bait, Kavanaugh’s opinion clarifies that the reactionary majority is sympathetic to challenges to a wealth tax. See Ian Millhiser, Vox, The Supreme Court's new tax case, Moore v. US, is great for billionaires.

Per Millhiser,

Moore was widely viewed as a stalking horse for an attack on wealth taxes. [¶] Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion in Moore . . .  claims that it leaves the question of whether wealth taxes are constitutional unresolved. The opinion even includes a footnote stating that “our analysis today does not address … taxes on holdings, wealth, or net worth.”

But that’s not true. Kavanaugh’s Moore opinion includes a bonanza of loaded language that any competent tax lawyer can seize upon to protect their richest clients from wealth taxes, should Congress ever actually enact such a federal tax in the future.

Like many recent opinions by the reactionary majority, opinions that do not grant all the relief sought by MAGA plaintiffs contain “Easter eggs” that point the way for future attempts to achieve the result denied in the current case. See, e.g., Axios (6/24/2022), Clarence Thomas wants SCOTUS to reconsider decisions on gay marriage, contraceptives.

So, on the day Trump disclosed that a single billionaire donor gave the largest-ever donation to a campaign, the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority gave a wink-and-a-nod to billionaires, indicating its opposition to a wealth tax. What a coincidence!

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Report on Tour to Save Democracy event on Thursday evening

Three hundred readers of this newsletter participated in a wonderful Zoom event on Thursday evening. The event raised funds for The Tour to Save Democracy, a Gen Z-led initiative to visit twenty swing districts nationwide to engage young voters. The bus tour will start on July 12th in Texas and visit over 20 “red-to-blue” flippable swing districts to inspire youth action and get out the vote to secure a Democratic trifecta in November.

The event was hosted by the great organizations Markers for Democracy, Seniors Taking Action, Downtown Nasty Women Social Group, Team Min, and The Wednesday Group. Jessica Craven, influencer Jo Carducci (@JoJoFromJerz), and I led a discussion with three leaders of the Tour. Three hundred people joined and stayed for the entire presentation!

It was a fantastic event—because of the young people who spoke passionately about their desire to elect Democrats and defeat Republicans in 2024. They shared their fears and hopes arising from issues like gun violence, reproductive liberty, affordable healthcare, and affordable rent. They were fierce in their determination to bring about change in 2024.

The discussion was fascinating and informative. As founder Sam Schwartz noted, most young people will not attend an event with talking heads debating tax policy or Trump's criminal trials. So, the Tour will seek to attract young people to events that are celebratory, inclusive, fun, and educational.

A few lessons that I took from the discussion: Young people want to be viewed as partners in the political process—not as a means to an end. They want to be taken seriously. They have concerns that do not map neatly onto the concerns of older Americans, and we need to listen. They are passionate, enthusiastic, and feel a sense of urgency—attributes that inspired the hundreds of older attendees on the Zoom event.

Indeed, the word “inspiring” frequently appeared in the chat box throughout the Zoom meeting. If you attended, you know what I am talking about. If you didn’t have the chance to attend, I am here to tell you that we have reason to be hopeful about the participation and support of young voters in 2024. They care; many understand the stakes; some do not. We need to provide assistance so that young leaders can reach other young voters to ensure maximum turnout in November.

The event was recorded and will be available soon. The website is here: Tour To Save Democracy. The list of districts to be visited will be posted shortly. I will let you know when it is available.

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Opportunity for Reader Engagement

Force Multiplier is partnering with America Votes, the preeminent coordination hub of the progressive community, in support of the Blue Surge Turnout Fund. This fund will be supporting up to forty grassroots groups in the battleground states.  On June 24th at 7p ET, please join Force Multiplier, America Votes President Greg Speed, Alex Gomez, Exec. Director of Living United for Change in Arizona, and Steve Paul, Exec. Director of One Pennsylvania to learn about the massive get-out-the-vote effort underway in the key states that will determine the fate of our democracy in November. Register and donate here.

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Concluding Thoughts

If I were stuck on a desert island and had to choose one source of news, it would be a tie between Lawrence O’Donnell (MSNBC) and Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo). Today, Josh Marshall’s “editor’s blog” hit the ball out of the park. He began by discussing the tendency of “Democratic operatives” to speak in increasingly dire tones about the state of Joe Biden’s campaign. The popular narrative among refugees from prior Democratic campaigns is that President Biden and his advisers are clueless about “the dire situation the campaign is in at this point.”

The premise of the “dire situation” cohort of handwringers is that Biden is losing and has little time to correct course. That is simply not true. Although you should ignore the polls, the “Democratic operatives” who sell their opinions to cable news outlets should have a passing familiarity with the polls. If they did, they would know that, at worst, the race is tied, but, in fact, Joe Biden’s polling has been steadily improving, and he now has a consistent (albeit small) lead over Trump. (Read Simon Rosenberg if you want the details.) That small lead and $3.75 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It is a close race. Period.

But the Democratic operatives are stuck in a doom cycle. They predicted the end of the world months ago and now have egg on their face and are pretending not to notice. This is where Josh Marshall picks up with his editor’s blog entitled, “Getting Clinical (Adventures in the Affective Disordered World of ‘Democratic Strategists’).”

Marshall comments as follows:

But I keep coming back to “dire [predictions].” There’s something legitimately clinical going on here. Some of it is DC journalists being attached to a narrative, one they’re invested in for various reasons.

But Democrats and “Democratic strategists” play a role here too . . . .  I’ve made my argument at some length that runaway pessimism has real world campaign impacts, in addition to simply being an Eeyore-ly and undignified way to live life.

But there is some disconnect here that is worth understanding, worth taking a hard look at quite apart from its potential negative impacts on the election outcome. I wish I could give a good explanation for it beyond the inherent GOP tilt of most national political press coverage and intrinsic Democratic worry-wart-ism, both of which are certainly playing a role. But I can’t.

For now I can only point to it as a standout example of the way that certain press and political narratives can remain curiously immune to actual evidence.

In a few short paragraphs, Marshall identifies three factors that slant the news against the President: (a) the GOP tilt of the national press, (b) the Democratic tendency to over-worry everything, and (c) the unwillingness of “political operatives” to update their beliefs in the face of new evidence.

Most “political operatives” are stuck on the Times-Siena poll of several weeks ago, which has been shown to be a discredited outlier. But political operatives just can’t let go of that poll—because it fits neatly into their negative narrative despite a dozen subsequent polls (including Fox News) showing Joe Biden leading.

Although I have made similar points before, it is good to see someone as insightful as Josh Marshall validate the view that political operatives are selling doom, drama, and conflict. They only appear on cable news every four years, so they make the best of their limited skill set—which largely involves scaring you.

The trendline for Biden is positive. With five months to go, you would much rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump. (So says Simon Rosenberg.)

Talk to you tomorrow!