The 1% understand very well that the Republican Party is dedicated, first and foremost, to cutting the taxes of the rich. How else to explain the billionaires who don’t like Trump but spent millions on candidates who repeated The Former Guy’s Big Lie?
Of course, they want low taxes. But they have another goal: School choice. Somehow these billionaires became convinced that charters and vouchers are superior to public schools, and they want to make sure that those in public office agree with them, regardless of ample evidence that school choice has proven to be a failure over the past three decades.
Maggie Severns reports at GRID:
Some of the biggest Republican megadonors don’t support former president Donald Trump — but have wound up supporting his candidates.
Ken Griffin, the founder of hedge fund Citadel and currently the third-biggest donor to the 2022 midterms, is a business leader and repeat critic of Trump. Earlier this year, he publicly called on Republicans to abandon the idea that the election was stolen, saying, “It’s really important that we end the rhetoric in America that elections can be rigged.” He maintains the Republican Party should “move on” from Trump in 2024.
When it came time for this year’s midterms, Griffin went big, becoming a top contributor to super PACs helping Republicans win back the House and Senate. But those super PACs are supporting the very politics that Griffin has shunned: He gave $10 million to a PAC that has aired ads for Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, a Peter Thiel acolyte who has falsely claimed Democrats are trying to “import” immigrants to help them win elections; Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania who recently said “lots more information” is needed to determine if Trump won the 2020 election; and Adam Laxalt, the Republican nominee in the Nevanda senate race, a former state attorney general who held press conferences and filed lawsuits alleging widespread voter fraud in 2020….
Jeffrey Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania and the fourth-largest donor of the midterms, didn’t give money to Trump’s campaign during the 2020 election, but he has poured $47 million into federal politics this cycle, much of it to the conservative Club for Growth and an affiliated PAC, which have supported candidates who espouse conspiracy theories and challenged the 2020 election results. Yass is also focused on education policy, working to advance charter schools and school choice with his political money. Republican financier Paul Singer, another major super PAC donor who did little support to Trump, has spent $20 million this cycle.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So instead of paying taxes for the good of America, they give millions to stool pigeons…Billionaires live in their own little world and want to keep us out of it.
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Sickening.
Wish these billionaires had one ounce of ethics. But, they don’t!
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I can’t believe you would imply the f-word in a post!
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Sorry, just Googled it. Did not realize it meant “former.”
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TFG=The Former Guy.
That’s what Biden calls him.
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I think I’m closer to the truth.
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Good points all, but I would caution that we don’t know why they don’t seem to like public schools, and thus support all forms of privatization, but one suspects it’s the strength of public school unions–3 or 4 million educated people supporting their unions and lending strength to the struggling private sector unions. Unions stand up to greed and demand a fair wage and fair benefits for their workers. And they continue to organize. No, unions and their leaders are not perfect–but they are a counterbalance to corporate greed. Most corporate people don’t want that balance. It’s probable that many corporate leaders don’t actually know why they dislike unions–that dislike is bred into the management class.
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Most of those billiaonres belong to ALEC, meaning they are Koch brothers libertarian, theofascist, klpetocrats dedicated to stripping the state and federal government of their powers, so “they, the billionaires” rule the states as they see fit without interference. If successful. that means those billionaires will divide the US into fiefdoms. Since they are who they are, eventually they will end up at war with each other, sending private armies (the adult children of working class parents) to wage brutal shooting wars with other billionaire fiefdoms in the US.
But, no matter what they do, it is us, the working class, that will suffer the most.
These billionaires and multi millionaires, that support BIG LIE candidates, are no different than Musk and Trump in their destructiveness. The only difference is they probably prefer working their long-term subversive agendas behind the scenes without media attention.
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“Somehow these billionaires became convinced that charters and vouchers are superior to public schools, and they want to make sure that those in public office agree with them, regardless of ample evidence that school choice has proven to be a failure over the past three decades.”
First, they like vouchers because they themselves benefit directly if they have children or grandchildren of school age.
Second, it’s much easier to sell products and services like “educational” software and hardware to charters and traditional private schools because there is a lot less red tape and oversight.
Third, most of these billionaires went to private schools and are convinced that there is a causal link between their private schooling and their billionaire status.
Finally, they don’t give a damn about “evidence” , except in so far as it puts a damper on their privatization plans.
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