The Koch Brothers, the Mercers, the Adelsons, the Schwabs, the Camerons, and so on and so on. These are just some of the "mega rich" Republican donors who are continuing to prop up the status quo ante on the political right, scarcely realizing their financial contributions will all become irrelevant by the monopoly of Big Tech in a few short years.
We aren't building the same institutions the establishment left have in gargantuan number.
Myopia is rife on the right. Especially within the realms of the nationalist/populist/Trumpian right.
We have almost no strength in depth in our squad, and we're constantly getting rolled by the powers that have previously been, and who want back in.
We aren't building the same institutions the establishment left and right have in gargantuan number. We're relying on this White House and President Trump to fix all our woes without giving thought to who is working against our interests both inside and outside of the White House and on Capitol Hill, and how almost anything in Washington, D.C. gets done in the first instance.
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The left's institutions, like the Human Rights Campaign, are well funded and therefore massive in scale.[/caption]
I'll be less opaque: we won a battle, but we're losing the war.
This is mostly because our side doesn't know how to do much, and even the few wealthy types on our team aren't riding into our battles like the cavalry we so desperately need. You can only blame the President for so much inaction, before you have to recognize his motivation and ability to act are fueled only by necessity. Whether we like it or not, he's still a politician now.
In the run up to re-launching Human Events, Will Chamberlain and I set about attempting to fundraise for the project. We wanted donations from wealthy people to come along and help us raise the modest (for D.C.) $1,000,000 a year in operating budget. It's a great cause. It's a great brand. How could we lose? Especially when groups like the fusty Heritage Foundation are raising around $120m a year.
We soon realized the conservative donor circuit was chock full of people unconcerned with "doing the right thing" and more concerned with tax breaks and tax cuts... for themselves.
This, in short, is why we continue to struggle in the world of digital and social media.
Conservative donors don't want to invest in or donate to start-ups in this arena. For them, there's no tax break in giving to an LLC, and there's certainly no direct effect on policy making in the arena of low taxes by backing a free speech endeavor.
So, in the end, Will and I turned to our audience for support.
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But this isn't going to be enough if we are serious about bringing down, or bringing challenges to the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others.
Despite a heavy number of rightist voices being muzzled online, the 'right wing mega donors' are nowhere on this issue. Which leaves us – the foot-soldiers – with neither sword nor shield.
The psychopaths of Silicon Valley aren't going to stop with Paul Joseph Watson and/or Laura Loomer. They're shifting the Overton Window of public discourse in order to eradicate all rightist voices entirely: be they free market capitalist voices, or nationalist-populist ones.
Those who know their history will know that the left never stops when it defeats what it regards as the most dangerous or extreme opponents to its ideology. They seek to eradicate every seed and stem of conservatism, at every juncture.
Meanwhile, the Koch's continue to fund pro-immigration projects such as the Libre Initiative – not so much to do with tax cuts as cheap labor (same shit, different means); and "free market" ideological behemoths like the CATO Institute.
...our ideas are being silenced en masse, and on repeat.
If they really cared about political freedom, the Constitution, and freedom of speech in the United States, we'd already have our own serious social network to contend with the liberal establishment.
Instead, our ideas are being silenced en masse, and on repeat.
Soon it won't matter how much Adelson or Schwab pours into a Senate race, or a special election, or even the Presidential campaign of whomever the Republican nominee is.
As the digital public square takes over as the number one source for the majority of people's information, the Big Tech tyrants will render their dollars meaningless via the stifling of speech.
In 25 years they'll wonder why they've been routed at the ballot box almost every single time. It'll be their own fault.
Raheem Kassam is the Global Editor-in-Chief of HumanEvents.com
