Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel may not be the first person you think of when it comes to the insurrection at the Capitol, where Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president today.
But thanks to his generous contributions to some rather odious politicians, he played a key role in putting the inciters in office, inevitably leading to their assault on our democracy.
First and foremost, Thiel was one of the few Silicon Valley figures willing to place a bet on Donald Trump. Thiel’s wholehearted endorsement of Trump earned him a primetime spot at the Republican national convention that year, where he praised the candidate and told the assembled crowd of right-wing party faithful that he was “proud to be gay.” (It was not exactly a big applause line.)
More to the point, at a time when Trump’s campaign was starved for cash in 2016, Thiel invested $1.25 million, making him one of Trump’s largest donors. The investment came late in the campaign after the tape of Trump boasting about sexual assault became public.
Thiel’s argument was basically that people should be taking Trump seriously but not literally and that he was not as bad as the other candidates. All along, however, Trump has been a literalist. He would have gladly sacrificed his own vice president to the mob if he could have stayed in the White House.
Thiel was also partly responsible for the presence in the Senate of Ted Cruz, who fueled the lie that the election was rigged even after the insurrection.
Thiel was the largest donor to the super PAC that was instrumental in helping Cruz secure the GOP senate nomination in 2012. When Cruz started his campaign, he polled in the low single digits. Thanks to the investment of wealthy donors like Thiel, he was able to score an upset.
And it’s not just Cruz. Thiel also made the maximum possible donation to Josh Hawley’s campaign for Senate in 2018. He had already given Hawley $300,000 two years before for Hawley’s run for Missouri attorney general. (Hawley is one of the most ardent religious right figures in public office, and Cruz’s counterpart in insurrection baiting.)
Trump, Cruz, and Hawley have all been branded as the lead inciters in the Capitol insurrection. They are in office, at least in part, thanks to Thiel’s financial backing.
This isn’t to say that Thiel underwrote the insurrection. He just bankrolled the politicians who inflamed the crowd with lies about the election.
But as a reminder, Thiel is no fan of the democratic system. He has said in the past he doesn’t believe freedom and democracy are “compatible.” He’s not a fan of the press either, despite his appearance on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight to denigrate “identity politics,” as if that term could not describe Trump’s support for White Supremacists. He spent millions of his own money to fund the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that drove Gawker out of business, killing what surely would have been a critical source of Trump corruption coverage.
To make matters worse, Thiel this year contributed nearly a million big ones to Senate hopeful Kris Kobach, a prototype for Donald Trump before Trump ever ran for president. The Republican made his reputation as the Kansas Secretary of State by crusading against immigrants and (imaginary) voter fraud, but he also trafficked in virulent homophobia. At one point, he compared homosexuality to drug use and polygamy. A few weeks after the donation, Kobach, deemed too extreme even for the GOP, was trounced in the primary by a more moderate Republican.
Thiel managed quite the feat: bankrolling the four horsemen of the democracy apocalypse, Trump, Hawley, Cruz, and Kobach.
To his credit, Thiel did give up on Trump in the 2020 campaign cycle, not contributing to the re-election campaign. Apparently, the administration’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic was too much for Thiel to swallow. reportedly calling the Trump reelection campaign, in a nice turn of phrase, the SS Minnow, a reference to the shipwrecked boat from Gilligan’s Island.
But even there, Thiel has a connection. Palantir, the data-mining firm that he founded, was awarded a contract by the Trump administration to track the virus. (That’s better than the awkward hand fondle Trump gave him for his support.)
Now, CDC officials are urging the Biden administration to dump the system Palantir created because they say it’s potentially inaccurate. Like the company founder’s political instincts, it appears to be deeply flawed.
Thiel is said to be focused on raising two kids with his husband; let’s hope that family leads to a “kinder, gentler” kind of political philanthropy in the post-Trump era. The world could use his help.
Cam
You can tell media is still trying to protect Republicans by the fact that Clarence and Ginni Thomas’s funding of buses to bring the rioters up to DC hasn’t gotten a lot of play.
Thiel is a nightmare and I hope it effects his business, but we had a Supreme Court Justice helping to fund an attack on the U.S. Capitol and nobody is mentioning it.
Den
Nobody is mentioning it because it is simply not true.
While Ginni Thomas has widely touted conspiracy theories and supported far right groups for years, she did not fund busloads of insurrectionists. This is essentially a Charlie Kirk (who is no stranger to mendacity) statement that some bloggers who should know better passed on without researching.
I put a link to snopes in my original response, forgetting that would immediately send it into “moderation” and it would never see the light of day. But snopes lists it as false.
Cam
Nice, thank you for correcting that! Snopes did have some other interesting information on Ginni Thomas.
“Thomas is indeed a well-known right-wing organizer and conspiracy theorist. She provided Trump with several memos outlining what she believed to be government officials unfaithful to Trump, lobbied successfully for appointments of Trump loyalists to government posts, and along with other activists met with him in 2019 to discuss “appointments … that they accused the president’s aides of blocking,” for example. In 2016 — as Snopes reported in an October 2020 investigation, she was also part of efforts to promote false talking points regarding illegal voting by immigrants in the 2016 election.”
Chrisk
I knew that the shithead Thiel was bad to the core when he bankrolled the lawsuit against Gawker. All out of revenge for outing him.
Invader7
Sellout . TRAITOR. Brown noser…One day Miss Thiel you’ll be NOBODY. Maybe you’ll LOSE all your $$$ and the Neo-NAZI fascist party YOU support will NOT want your sorry ass donations nor support. All the GOP cares about is $$ & power. You’re a nuisance to them .Quit deluding yourself.. What will you do then? Whine and cry like the biatch you really are? Don’t say you haven’t been forewarned. Cause the Greedy Old Party EATS it’s own !!!
ProudBLK Gay
This is precisely why I canceled my PayPal account.
Others would do well to follow.
We learned years ago what financial firepower we have when we focus, ala Coor Beer boycott, and others.
Remember, Hitler’s Brownshirts had many a gay man among them also.
Let’s stay vigilant!
Ronbo
How can we negatively impact Thiel’s bank account? I stopped going to facebook years ago due to how it served to divide my family.
The author could do a better job by providing safe and legal avenues to make Thiel pay for his part in dividing the nation, creating dissent and anger wherever it goes.
radiooutmike
It’s funny because this is the exact type of thing Gawker reported on.