Donald Trump and the Republican Party are making big claims to represent working class Americans, to be facing down so-called “globalist elites,” to be draining the swamp of the entire taxonomy of lobbyists, consultants and lawyers that do corporations bidding in the capital. Trump says that unlike other politicians, he’s too rich to be bought.
But how does this match Trump’s own record?
What corporations and donors are funding HIS campaign efforts?
It is actually a roll-call of the exact same elites Trump claims to be standing against.
Here is a little taste of some of the largest donors. Keep in mind this is in fact a drop in the bucket of what will be spent overall by Republican (and Democratic) donors up and down the ticket.
The biggest money in elections these days is donated to Super PACs, which allow major donors to avoid any spending limits and to cut big checks. The principal Super PAC backing Trump is America First Action, and the biggest check, at least since January 2019, comes from Timothy Mellon who has already dropped $10 million into their account.
Mellon’s may ring a bill because he is a scion of one of America’s oldest, richest billionaire families, the grandson of notorious robber baron, Andrew Mellon. Mellon is a major railroad mogul in his own right. Mellon says in his autobiography he made a fortune in the railway industry by knocking three out of every five freight crew workers off the job and onto unemployment. Just for good measure, he also compares food stamps, and the Affordable Care Act, to….slavery.
The second biggest check came from Stephen Schwarzman, a Wall Street billionaire, head of the private equity firm Blackstone, Schwarzman is said to be worth $17 billion. He cut a three million dollar check to America First Action earlier this year. Schwarzman, also no real friend of the working class, is a plutocrat of the old fashioned type. He called a 2010 plan to raise taxes slightly on carried interest akin to Hitler’s invasion of Poland(!)
Dana White, yep, that Dana White, the head of UFC, dropped $1,000,000 into the AFA coffers. UFC, working person’s type of sport right? Well, Dana White only sees his workers as pawns. UFC keeps 85% of earnings from the fights and White uses dictatorial control to force fighters to do what he wants and aggressively works to crush every single union drive. He joined with Uber and other companies to misclassify workers to keep from paying them fairly.
Billionaire real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer has given America First Action $6 million so far. Palmer, over the years, has gained the title of LA’s “worst developer.” Palmer has gone all out to prevent real rent control and gone to court to eliminate affordable housing requirements in new developments. He’s been accused of illegally keeping millions of dollars in security deposits from renters, and built units in such an environmentally unsafe way they gained the name “black-lung lofts.”
So there you have it, just a taste of Trump’s biggest backers. While the RNC this week is going to present Trump as the candidate of the working man, standing behind him are the same old bunch of thieves, swindlers, Wall Street tycoons and union busters that have been cheating working class people out of a decent living and throwing money at both parties for decades.
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