The Arrogance of Peter Thiel
“The elites plunder this country and then blame us for it in the process,” J.D. Vance, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, declared when he announced his bid for the seat from Ohio.
Elsewhere, he’s insisted that America faces a stark choice. “We can have an American Republic or a global oligarchy, and it’s time for choosing.”
Blake Masters, Arizona’s Republican Senate candidate, shares a similar worldview. In his victory speech after winning the GOP nomination in August he said that a liberal cabal runs the “newspapers and television and schools and universities—and you better believe they control Big Tech, too.” In an earlier interview, he explained that progressives not only hate America and Americans who disagree with them, but the “very idea of a sovereign nation.” If their view “takes root and becomes universal,” this “globalist ideology,” he said, will lead to a “One World State, call it ‘Global Communism.’ ” He added, “So in my view that ideology is a pretty good candidate for the Antichrist.”
These men have much in common ideologically and politically. They also share a patron: Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Pay Pal and provided the first outside investment in Facebook. Indeed, both worked for Thiel before getting into politics, with Thiel’s financial support.
