One of the things to increasingly dominate our politics is the powerful undercurrents coming from both an extroverted, or hidden, billionaire caste. These folks have plenty of money to spend. And there are only so many helicopters you can buy before the senses dull.
We on the left are very used to hearing about the excesses of far-right forces like the Koch brothers. And one of the favorite discussion topics my son and I, both political junkies and history buffs, like to talk about is how we might change the political landscape in the U.S.
This topic ended with this question: “What would you do if you had $1 billion to spend on American politics?” We came up with the $1 billion by totalling the amount the infamous Koch brothers, profiled in Jane Mayer’s book, “Dark Money,” spent the past 30 years on shifting the American political lens. Braden, my son, concluded that he could basically hijack the political system for that amount of cash.
With compendia like Mayer’s book, or even another one, like Anne Nelson’s book “Shadow Network,” you can run down the origins of organization of the religious right and how they have moved the needle.
It’s easy to do this, if you’re a liberal, on those folks on the other side of your opinion. And it’s also easy to dismiss criticism of favorite conspiracy bugbears, like George Soros, well-known billionaire and globalist political operator.
But if you think that all billionaires willing to dump money into their pet causes are right-wingers, I’ve got a surprise for you.
Recently, we as a nation have been confronted with the idea of “gender affirming care” for gender dysphoric teens and even preteens. I’ve stated in a previous column how, while adults can do whatever they want with their bodies, the same does not apply to children — regardless of what parents and doctors may want.
Decisions and acceptance of castration and other modes of sterilization are almost always irreversible decisions, and drugs like puberty blockers also have permanent effects on young bodies.
But where did this campaign come from? Enter stage left the Pritzker family. The Pritzkers are the heirs to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, some $27 billion in inherited wealth claimed through the luck of birth. J.B. Pritzker is the governor of Illinois and looks more like Humpty Dumpty than a regular guy.
He’s spent a big hunk of his money on his political campaign, and has until recently propagated a failed COVID-Zero strategy on both adults and schoolchildren in his state.
He also was a major driver behind placing Barack Obama into the presidency.
That’s only part of the story. J.B. is part of the same clan and pot of money as Jennifer (she’s his cousin), who used to be a dude (James). After having a successful military career, and fathering three children, he decided to become a she, and dump a ton of money across the nation into transgender causes.
Using her vehicle, the Tawani foundation, she endowed university chairs, started institutions in places like Harvard, as well as funneled money through spigots like the Tides Foundation. If you want to get out the red yarn and attempt to figure out who’s started the various ideas roiling society today, good luck. But there’s no question that billionaires like Pritzker are the ones spending the dough to institutionalize them.
There are no easy answers on regulating or controlling any of this. In many ways, we’re in the same situation with our billionaires and their perverse social agendas as our society was more than a 100 years ago in dealing with the trusts. Somehow, we’re going to have to figure out how to bust these idea trusts. They are arbitrary, and destroy democracy.
One can start by questioning “why should I support this next thing?” Odds are, if it’s not something that immediately affects your world nor helps your interest, a billionaire with an arbitrary agenda is behind it.
And it’s important to remember that when the press leads with “this is all you need to know” as the tagline. You need to know more.
Pezeshki is a professor in mechanical and materialsengineering at Washington State University.
