Once upon a time, some überwealthy individuals who’d previously supported Donald Trump declared that they were done with the 45th president of the United States. After January 6, 2021, billionaire GOP donor Nelson Peltz called the insurrection a “stain on America” and publicly apologized for voting for Trump in 2020. Real estate and aerospace mogul Robert Bigelow said Trump “lost me as a supporter” and showed, during the attack on the Capitol, that “he was no commander.” Billionaire donor Howard Hamm told Trump point-blank not to run for office again, saying the Republican Party needed a chaos-free candidate, and gave money to his competitors instead.
So it may or may not surprise you that those exact people, and others whose net worths include roughly nine zeros, are now singing an extremely different tune. Which, and we don’t want to shock anyone, might have something to do with Joe Biden pledging to raise their taxes. As The Washington Post reports, Peltz hosted Trump for breakfast this month at his Palm Beach mansion, later telling the Financial Times he will “probably” vote for him in November. Bigelow told Reuters in January he donated $1 million to help cover Trump’s legal fees and promised to give $20 million more to a Trump-aligned super PAC. According to the Post, Hamm is headlining a fundraiser next month—hosted by fellow billionaire John Paulson—for which the maximum contribution is $814,600.
Deep down, all they have is fear of losing it all.
If I somehow lost every material possession, I could still get a decent engineering job somewhere and rebuild my life. These billionaires are truly worthless, not qualified or able to run a lemonade stand. They know if they lost it all, they would be begging for dollars on the side of the road. Why they fight so hard to rig the system.
I think the fear is that they know they’re absolutely fucking stupid rich and that it draws a target on their backs. Not that they’re going to lose it to general financial misfortune, they would have to be the worst sort of inept and self-destructive to actually wind up poor.
Like Trump selling sneakers and bibles.