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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBillionaires and Big Corporations Love Fascism. Here are the ones backing Trump's campaign...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/04/17/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-donald-trumps-campaign/#2ce9d2a07989Most of the donors, some 56%, live in just three states: Florida, New York and Texas. More than three-quarters are self-made. The rest inherited small fortunes and grew them into bigger ones. They come from all sorts of industriesreal estate, energy, sports and so on. But one-fifth of the donors got rich in finance & investments. That group includes titans like Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, hedge funder John Paulson and retired Franklin Templeton chief Charles B. Johnson. About 10% of the donors made their money in real estate, including Trumps fellow New York City billionaire, Richard LeFrak. Shopping mall magnate Edward DeBartolo pitched in $3,000 with his wife Cynthia; Trump later pardoned him, in February.
Texas banker Andy Beal, who Forbes estimates is worth $8.1 billion, has given more money to the Trump Victory joint fundraising committee than any other individual billionaire, according to federal filings. Since 2017 Beal, whose bank was once a senior lender to Trump Entertainment Resorts, has donated more than $1 million over many months. Thats nearly twice as much as he gave during the 2016 campaign. (And just $12,200 less than the combined sum TD Ameritrade AMTD +1.9%s Joe Ricketts and his wife Marlene gave.) Brothers and casino magnates Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, along with their wives, meanwhile, gave $1.4 million to Trump Victory in one single day last October.
Forbes found that 80 billionaires and their spouses have donated to Trump's presidential campaign committee. Their fortunes stem from 16 industries.
Some donors made one large contribution early in the Trump presidency, like Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman, who gave $125,000 to Trump Victory in September 2017. Others have contributed multiple times over the last three years. Fifty-one percent of Trumps billionaire donors did not give to the presidents 2016 campaign. U-Haul billionaire E. Joe Shoen made his first-ever contribution to Trump Victory, $35,500, in February 2020. President Trump has done an outstanding job and certainly merits my vote, Shoen says. (Forbes reached out to all of Trumps donors, nearly all of whom declined to comment on the record.)
Nearly all the money coming from billionaires traveled through something called a joint fundraising committee. By law, no individual can donate more than $5,600 to an official presidential campaign. But anyone can give bigger sums to joint fundraising committees, which gather funds for specific campaigns and political parties. President Trump has two major joint fundraising committees, Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which collect money for his campaign, the Republican National Committee and other state-level RNC groups. Forty-five billionaire donors have pitched in more than $100,000 each to Trumps joint fundraising committees.
mitch96
(13,918 posts)Yup, Ol grand pappy Bush back in the 30's admired Hitlers "efficiency" in the country. Bush wanted that type of "capitalism" here in the US... A bunch of them even attempted to over throw Roosevelt but General Smedley Butler blew the whistle..
At the time it was called the "Business Plot". and is documented in the library of congress..
I heard about it on a BBC presentation. Fascinating and scary too..
m
brush
(53,801 posts)as was Sloan of GM and others.
mitch96
(13,918 posts)with military backing. Their mistake was to approach Butler... Some rumors at the time said that FDR had the crew rounded up and threatened them with treason and a firing squad. BUT if they could help pushing thru Social security and a bunch of "damn liberal ideas" he would forgo the punishment.. ? squid pro quo?
m
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007tbs0
brush
(53,801 posts)an instrumental factor in getting New Deal programs passed. You might say he "made the plotters an offer they couldn't refuse".
The repugs have been trying to get rid of Social Security and other safety net programs ever since. Silly ass trump even tried to drop SS withholding this very week as part of the repugs' virus relief package. Seems GOP elephants have long memories of getting burned.
mitch96
(13,918 posts)MeThinks we read the same history books...
m
brush
(53,801 posts)mitch96
(13,918 posts)We need a new Smedley Butler to fight this new corporate fascists..
m
?1533126816
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)Kid Berwyn
(14,933 posts)I kid you not:
How billionaires got $637 billion richer during the coronavirus pandemic
https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-net-worth-increases-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-7
Im so happy for them. Does anyone doubt they want to share it?
DFW
(54,415 posts)I have lived in a country run by proud fascists. The leader of the country was the last erstwhile ally of Hitler and Mussolini, without whom he never would have gained power in the first place.
Twenty billionaires can't keep an elected (even sorta) fascist in place by themselves. I lived in the Spain of Generalísimo Francisco Franco in the 1960s. They controlled all the media (sound familiar?) and convinced people of little education, no foreign language skills, and little contact with the outside world that they were surrounded by enemies, and that they needed to be ever vigilant against people who were inferior to themselves--even if there were none. And, of course, religion. Always religion. "God" was with them, and thus "God" was against anyone they were against.
Spain's borders were not closed by then--after the war, Franco needed money and military aid against an imperialist-minded Stalin. Luckily for him, Stalin was more occupied with his plans for Greece (close but no cigar) and Yugoslavia (Tito strung him along, and then told him to fuck off). Franco was smart enough to realize he had to ease up on an increasing basis. But the place was still a modern day semi-laissez-faire fascism. They still checked what printed materials you had on you when you entered the country, and the Catalan and Basque languages were forbidden in schools and most of the media.
The control freaks still ran the place. Convince people that you need repressive measures to protect them, and a number of them will always swallow it. Just read the interviews with Hitler's buddy Göring in his cell in Nürnberg. He lays it flat out in clear, easy-to-understand terms. His "socialist" successors in the "German Democratic Republic" used the same playbook.
Just make the people think that they need to accept that they live in the best of all possible worlds, and that they can have some fun by crapping on people below them who constitute a threat to their paradise. You will have your lovers of Fascism in great numbers. You want to diminish the lovers of fascism in the USA? You don't have to confiscate the net worth of 20 people or put them in front of a firing squad. Just turn off the electricity (or, better yet, revoke the license) at Fox "News" for a month. That should be good for an across-the-board 7% upward spike in the approval rating for every Democrat from the office of President down to the Mayberry dog catcher.
wiggs
(7,814 posts)one campaign committee? I think the article makes a valid point about billionaires' support...but I would hope the article would note that there are MANY other ways to funnel support to a candidacy and an individual who is the king of money laundering and cheating. And that there's evidence that many FOREIGN interests have likely contributed.
Authors mention other committees but their opening paragraph said they researched only one in depth.
Not doing a deep dive into the article and fact-checking so I could be off, but a true article on Trump supporters across the board would likely turn up a lot more donors and a lot more money. But yes...Trump looks after the world's top .1%.
crickets
(25,981 posts)There's always a loophole that undermines the law and renders it useless, and Repubs either find one or make one every single time.