There are still friends of the ultra-wealthy in our politics. They just aren’t whom you’d imagine them to be.
There are still friends of the ultra-wealthy in our politics. They just aren’t whom you'd imagine them to be.
‘T oadies for billionaires” is how one excitable correspondent describes the Republican Party.
But nobody seems to have told the billionaires.
Politics is not based on policy, or economics, or analysis — politics is based on storytelling, and we typically are far more committed to our stories than to any other aspect of our political lives. (Oh, no, not you! You’re an enlightened philosopher-king. But that other guy. . . .) We stick with our stories even when the facts on the ground have changed.
The Republican Party was, for a long time, the business party. Sometimes, that manifested itself in a principled commitment to free enterprise and free markets, and sometimes it manifested itself as doling out favors to Big Business. Often, Republican politicians were engaged in both at the same time: Ronald Reagan was a champion of laissez-faire economics but also imposed protectionist tariffs as a sop to his business allies, notably Harley-Davidson.
But the commanding heights of the U.S. economy — Wall Street and, especially, Silicon Valley — are now much more progressive-leaning and Democrat-friendly than they used to be, and they are not at all bastions of conservative orthodoxy or Republican partisanship. That change has been driven in part by cultural polarization: While elite institutions, especially universities, have long been Democrat-aligned, the cultural orientation of the Republican Party has become increasingly rural, and not only rural but actively anti-urban, anti-cosmopolitan, and anti-elite, with Republicans declaring themselves the sworn enemies of everything from Hollywood to the Ivy League and, now, even professional sports. Conservatives will protest that the Left has been the cultural aggressor here, and that is true, but it doesn’t change the political outcome: If you want to study at Harvard, work in technology, live in Sausalito, and vacation in Aspen, you show up on the Republican radar as an Enemy of the People. Sure, maybe you wouldn’t complain if your taxes were a couple of points lower, but you don’t fit easily into the universe of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sean Hannity.
If you want to understand which is the billionaires’ party, then consult the billionaires.
Consider the 20 or so wealthiest Americans:
Jeff Bezos: The wealthiest American is a mixed bag in terms of his political donations. In terms of his public statements, he is scrupulously nonpartisan, though he has been generally supportive of Joe Biden, including of Biden’s infrastructure proposals and his plan to raise corporate taxes. People who know Bezos describe him as a Reason-style libertarian — a free-market capitalist with socially progressive tendencies.
He is not a Donald Trump fan, and not exactly the poster boy for the Republican Party in 2021.
Elon Musk: The eccentric Tesla founder has approximately the politics of a 1990s college sophomore, calling himself “socially liberal and fiscally conservative” and “half Democrat and half Republican.” The experience of dividing his time between California and Texas seems to be radicalizing him in Texas’s direction. But, for now, he donates to both parties and commits himself to neither.
Bill Gates: The Microsoft founder has financially supported a lot of Democrats and a few Republicans. He is personally tight with the Obamas, but he also likes charter schools. Philosophically, he is best described as a technocratic progressive. His criticism of Trump’s coronavirus response made him a right-wing-hate totem. Policy-wise, he is generally closer to Democrats than to Republicans. Culturally, he is about as far away from the 2021 Republican Party as an American can be.
Mark Zuckerberg: He has spread political money around pretty promiscuously, tipping everybody from Chuck Schumer to Marco Rubio. He publicly claims neither party. His wife supports Democrats almost exclusively, with the exception of Chris Christie. He is not the Republican billionaire you are looking for.
Warren Buffett: The fifth-wealthiest American is a moderate Democrat. The kind of Republican he likes is Michael Bloomberg, i.e., the kind of Republican who is a Democrat.
Larry Ellison: The Oracle founder has a bipartisan giving history but went in big on Trump, possibly as part of a backdoor effort to undermine Amazon. He is a registered Democrat.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin: The Google guys are left-leaning and Democrat-supporting. Regarding Trump’s win in 2016, Brin said: “As an immigrant and a refugee, I certainly find this election deeply offensive.”
Steve Ballmer: He’s a major supporter of Gabby Giffords’s gun-control organization and allied efforts, and a modest supporter of Democratic candidates.
Assorted Waltons: The Waltons are a mixed bag. The older generation was pretty much exclusively Republican, but Alice Walton, who was a key ally of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s in 2016, supports Democrats almost exclusively. Walton money also has found its way to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the Lincoln Project, and Planned Parenthood.
Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg actually held office as a Republican, but it is fair to say he was a Republican of convenience. He ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary. There’s a story about pre-politics Donald Trump asking Bloomberg about his membership in some exclusive club, to which Bloomberg replied: “Forget it, Don — you can’t afford it.” He’s that kind of Democrat.
MacKenzie Scott: The former Mrs. Bezos is an almost cartoonishly committed progressive.
Daniel Gilbert: The Quicken Loans founder supported Chris Christie and John Kasich in the 2016 primary. He has donated to Democratic candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, but leans Republican.
Phil Knight: While Nike was making ads valorizing Colin Kaepernick, its founder was giving millions of dollars in political donations, mostly to Oregon Republicans, as part of a fruitless effort to elect pro-abortion Republican Knute Buehler as that state’s governor.
Charles Koch: The Wichita tycoon and philanthropist is a libertarian-leaning Republican, perhaps not as socially liberal as his late brother, David, but certainly someone who has tried to push the GOP in a liberty-first direction on matters such as marijuana decriminalization.
Julia Koch: The widow of David Koch makes a point of taking no interest in politics.
Michael Dell: Once a pretty solid Republican, the Austin-based computer entrepreneur has emerged as a leading critic of Texas Republicans’ voting-reform laws.
Miriam Adelson: Her late husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, was one of the most important Republican donors of the past several years and a key ally of Donald Trump.
Len Blavatnik: The Ukraine-born Vladimir Putin ally is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, where he is Sir Leonard. He is a very large donor to the Republican Party but also to the campaigns of Chuck Schumer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden.
The Martians: John and Jacqueline Mars, heirs to the candy fortune, do not loom very large on the political landscape. Jacqueline Mars is a supporter of the League of Conservation Voters; John Mars has donated both to Democratic candidates and to Marco Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC.
Leonard Lauder: The chairman emeritus of Estée Lauder has in recent years been a generous supporter of Democrats ranging from Andrew Cuomo to Dianne Feinstein, though most of his generosity has been directed at organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Institute. His brother, Ronald, is a Republican who served as ambassador to Austria in the Reagan administration.
So, by my count, that’s a lot of billionaire Democrats and billionaire Democrat-leaners, with the GOP claiming one or two Waltons, Charles Koch, and the ghost of Sheldon Adelson. It is notable that when the billionaires have supported Republicans, they have chosen mostly moderates such as Kasich and Christie, or those who are positively socially liberal such as Knute Buehler. David Koch was a supporter of gay marriage and abortion rights and a patron of the New York City Ballet — hardly the stuff of a contemporary Republican nationalist-populist. You won’t find many, if any, among these billionaires who are full-spectrum conservatives, though you will find quite a few who are up-and-down-the-line progressives, often unthinkingly so.
The fact is that the Democrats have grown very comfortable and cozy with wealth, status, and power, and they don’t mind enjoying the perks associated with those — they just don’t want to be witnessed in the act, because so much of their political identity is tied up in denouncing as greedy and selfish those in the high places they now occupy.
Put Chuck Schumer into a room with Mark Zuckerberg’s bankroll and see what kind of sycophancy ensues. There are toadies for billionaires in our politics, knots of them.
But they aren’t who you might think.