Source: lukewen studio (ID: lukewen1982)
Author: Captain Xinghai
At the end of the 19th century, the North Atlantic was stormy and stormy.
A ship full of immigrants is trying to keep its course and heading west.
The Jews who had just escaped from Russia were lying in the cabin. The stench of excrement and urine mixed with the pungent smell of vomiting spread in the cabin. The crying of babies also added a tragic color to the journey.
No one wanted to leave their homes, but they had to go because they were Jews.
They lived happily in Poland and got along well with the business oriented poles. However, after Poland was partitioned by Czarist Russia, their treatment deteriorated sharply. In particular, in March 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated and killed. Among the arrested suspects was a Jewish woman.
The whole tsarist Russia blamed the Jews for regicide. Alexander III decided to drive the Jews into the “fenced area”, and then began “pogrom” again and again.
The so-called “pogrom” in Russian means the destruction of houses, property and life.
The Jews had no choice but to flee. At that time, only the United States was willing to accept them. Thus, from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, as many as 2 million Czarist Jews crossed the Atlantic Ocean and immigrated to the United States.
The said and his wife, nestled in the cabin of the immigration ship, never imagined that their grandson would become the focus of the political struggle in the United States in August 2022, more than 100 years later.
one
In recent days, just as the struggle between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party has become white hot, another big bomb has exploded in US politics.
A rich Russian Jewish businessman, balthad, was exposed to have donated $1.6 billion in assets to the Federalist society, a conservative political group of the pro Republican Party in the United States in 2020, which can be called the largest political donation in history.
What is the concept of $1.6 billion in politics?
With Trump’s huge flow, the campaign funds raised in the whole election cycle in 2020 are only $734 million.
The total investment of the 15 most active non-profit organizations behind the Democratic Party in 2020 is only US $1.5 billion.
That is to say, the 15 funding departments of the Democratic Party have worked hard for a year, and they have tried hard to raise money everywhere. They have worn their mouths, but the result is that they have not donated as much as other behind the scenes funders of the Republican Party.
If you were a Democratic Party, would you break the defense? Do you want to find out who donated the money? To whom?
As a result, it doesn’t matter. I found that both of them have a lot of origins.
Born in 1932 into a Russian Jewish family, the donor bar side is the chairman and CEO of Tripp Lite, a Chicago electrical equipment manufacturer. He is now 90 years old. He has only done two things in his life, one is to earn money, and the other is to spend money for conservatives.
For example, in 2008, a conservative non-profit organization in New York released more than 20 million anti Muslim DVDs in order to incite anti Muslim sentiment before the presidential election of that year, and the money distributed was paid by balthad.
Also in 2008, Barr side donated US $825000 to summer college, and then the new president Thomas Lindsey took office, and revised the mission statement of the school to include “serious study” of the American Constitution, the Federalist Party’s humanities collection and other founding documents.
Some people also speculated that balthad had made a large donation to the fund named after the late conservative Supreme Court justice Anthony Scalia.
In addition, Barsad also founded the Barbara and Barry Reid foundation, which has long supported the activities of conservative organizations.
According to Barsad’s tax records, at least $775 million was donated between 1996 and 2018.
However, bar side kept a low profile and did not publicize and publicize such donations. Almost no one knew who he was. However, after the exposure of the 1.6 billion donation, bar side quickly entered the list of “financiers” in American conservative politics and became the “top brother”.
And the source of donations is even greater, which is a non-profit organization “marble freedom trust”.
In fact, there are many such organizations in the United States, whose main role is to raise funds for political activities. Moreover, there is a rule in this industry, which rarely discloses the source and purpose of the funds. It is unknown who donated the money and what scope it was used. Therefore, it is called a “black money” organization.
But this “marble freedom trust” is obviously unusual, because its head is leonard Leo, CO chairman of the conservative group “Federalist society”.
Leonard Leo is very famous among conservatives and has a close relationship with the Republican Party. He has been funding the struggle for “abortion rights, voting rules and climate change policies”.
His “Federalist society” is even more powerful. We all know that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party take turns in power in the United States. However, at the beginning of the founding of the United States, the “Federalist Party” and the “anti Federalist Party” have always held power. At the Philadelphia constitutional convention in 1789, Hamilton formed the Federalist Party, which advocated a centralized large government supported by the rich.
Madison and Jefferson, on the other hand, established the “anti union party”, which advocated to be closer to the middle and lower levels and to the interests of the planters and farmers in the south. Later, the “Republican Democratic Party” derived from the anti Federalist Party defeated the Federalist Party supported by a small number of elites because it was close to the grassroots level. As for the split of the Republican Democratic Party into the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, it is already a matter of time.
Although the Federalist Party lost its political power, its ideology has continued. Of course, due to lack of foundation, it has been confined to the academic circles such as judicial and political research.
In 1982, a small group of conservative law students from the University of Chicago and Yale University established the “Federalist society”. The original purpose was to resist the “pluralism” thought in the school. But now, the Federalists are more inclined to “fundamentalism”. They believe that judges should interpret the constitution according to the original meaning when the constitution was passed in 1787, and should not consider the changes of modern society. Therefore, since the founding fathers did not establish the right to abortion, today’s justices should not recognize it.
Originally, this is only a small circle in the academic circle, but under the leadership of Leonard Leo, he is working hard to exert more influence. The foundation he runs has provided the society with a large amount of opaque money, doubling the number of members to 70000. These 70000 people are not mere cats and dogs, but are dignitaries in the political, legal, military and business circles, It will create a storm in the political arena.
For example, on the issue of abortion, the Federalists have learned to operate simply and rudely. They do not need to incite the people like the Democratic Party. Instead, they directly follow the rules: isn’t it enough to send people who oppose abortion to the Supreme Court as justices? The judge ruled that abortion was illegal, so follow the judge’s decision. Leonard Leo has made it clear that his ambition is to appoint justices who “have the right view” and “apply the law by appropriate means”.
What is “having the right view”? In fact, they are right-wing Christians who oppose environmental protection laws, LGBT, same-sex marriage and abortion.
Don’t think he is talking casually. As early as the Bush era, the Federalist society successfully sent two of its members to the Federal Supreme Court. In the trump era, the Federalist society was even more prominent. Before trump became president, he asked Leo to provide him with a list of candidates for the Federal Supreme Court so that he could be nominated after he was elected president.
After becoming president, trump directly authorized Leo to help select federal judges. In three years, Leo helped trump nominate more than 130 judges of the district court and the court of first instance, 50 judges of the court of appeal (accounting for one fourth of the total), and sent three judges to the Supreme Court, making the Supreme Court to the Republican side.
What is more surprising is that all the six conservative judges of the Supreme Court are members of the Federalist society.
For a time, Leo became a saint of all conservative legal workers and a high-ranking figure. Anyone who wants to become a high-level judge must pass him. Even Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas said that Leo was “the third most powerful person in the world”.
Now you know why the Supreme Court rejected Roe v. Wade? Because Leo sent too many conservative judges to court.
After trump lost the election, the Federalist society did not give up its support for trump. For example, in 2021, after receiving the donation from Barr side, the “marble freedom trust” donated $41.1 million to an organization called “donor trust”.
This donor trust is the behind the scenes financier of the group “inciting and exaggerating the false claims of election fraud”. This group has always believed that Biden won the election by “dead vote” fraud and advocated the formulation of stricter voting rules.
The marble freedom trust also donated US $16.5 million to the Concord foundation. They have been advocating conservative nominations for the Supreme Court and other judges, and promoting restrictive electoral laws.
You see, trump has learned from the bitter experience and finally realized that if he wants to win the election, even if the support rate is high, the Democratic Party can take advantage of the loopholes in the votes to turn the tables. If he wants to win the election, he must start with the election methods and rules.
It goes without saying who those who advocate amending the electoral law are targeting.
two
What will be the impact of this donation? It can be said that it is very huge.
First of all, the donation was made in secret. In 2020, Barr side donated 100% of the company’s shares to the Federalist society of Rio, and then the Federalist society entrusted these shares to the “marble free trust” for management. In 2021, when the shares were high, the “marble free trust” sold these shares to an Irish company named Eaton, and earned $1.65 billion.
It is said that this operation can avoid paying up to $400 million in taxes.
The key point is that in order to avoid any complications, no matter the transaction in 2020 or the transaction in 2021, the outside world is completely unaware of it. It was not revealed until August 2022. The Democratic Party saw that the money was put into the account of “marble free trust” last year, and there is no way to obstruct it.
Don’t blame Sid for being so careful. This money is all he has, and it’s too much. In particular, in the political circles famous for “money politics”, such practices as “political donation” and “exchanging donations for ambassadorial Posts abroad” are almost the rules that the United States can openly discuss. However, Obama spent only US $729 million in his election campaign that year, and another US $720 million in his re-election campaign, which has surpassed previous presidential candidates. The sum of these two sums of money is not as much as that donated by Sade this time, and it is enough for Obama to elect twice.
The fact that his political opponents have obtained such a large sum of money makes the Democratic Party both jealous and angry.
The envy is that this money is so tempting that Federalists will learn to support high-ranking officials with the same political views through economic means to change the political situation in the United States.
I was angry. Why didn’t I have such a big money donor who donated all my wealth?
You should know that although the supporters of the Democratic Party are all rich people such as Wall Street and new tech tycoons, they are all money oriented people. You can ask them to exchange some money for interests, but it is impossible to destroy the party by donating all their property like the rich people of the right-wing Federalist Party.
This is because the left-wing rich are all fighting for more interests, while the right-wing rich are really fighting for their ideals. They feel that the United States is on the wrong track, violating the constitution at the time of the founding of the people’s Republic, and they are really willing to donate their wealth.
The Democratic Party has nothing to do with this. After all, it is already done. It can only mobilize all its forces to yell.
For example, many pro democratic media such as the New York Times said that the “Federalist society” would have a great advantage in the future election competition and political struggle.
The Washington Post also criticized the reasonableness of “expressing political opinions with money” and questioned that Sid’s move was suspected of taking advantage of the legal loopholes in the United States to avoid taxes on his property.
Many online messages also said: “Barr wants to be a low-key rich, but when he invests black money in the ‘Nazi’ cause, he doesn’t want to keep his privacy. Let’s find a way to ruin him!” Then, side encountered human flesh search and cyber storm.
What is more frightening to the Democratic Party is that the money is now in the hands of the Federalists. Will it directly become Trump’s campaign fund when trump runs?
Although this money is not for trump, trump can fully enjoy the dividends.
Because what trump gets is not only money (in fact, trump does not lack this $1.6 billion), but also the basis of public opinion and the guarantee of rules.
Because no matter whether they oppose abortion, gun rights, LGBTQ group rights, immigrant rights, minority rights and other conservative policies, they all have a great public opinion base in American society. This public opinion base can not be changed by Biden’s political correctness and pluralism. Although conservatives are not necessarily Republicans and liberals are not necessarily Democrats, However, when the two parties began to use these issues as a tool to win votes, it was inevitable that cognitive views would diverge into political views.
According to Huntington’s theory, Christian doctrine is the core of American culture and the foundation for Americans to establish their identity. As a result, even if the United States develops further, its foundation is still Christian faith. The moral absolutism, traditional family values and opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage advocated by Christian values coincide with the traditional values of “conservatism”. Therefore, American conservatism is one of the inherent political ideologies of most Americans. Although liberalism has been active in recent years, But it is not the foundation of American values.
The Federalist society, for example, makes articles on the basis of conservatism. For example, the media hypes the issue of conservatism, and imperceptibly pushes the trend of social consciousness to the right. When the whole society recognizes conservatism, will the election of the Republican still be a problem? Will it still be a problem to pull the whole United States back to the state when the constitution was established?
If the Federalists take this money to expand vigorously, more fundamentalist issues will be pushed into the supreme law. The last abortion rights incident is proof.
The Democratic Party has no choice but to go all the way and incite the people to fight with the Conservatives. As long as the Republican Party supports it, the Democratic Party will oppose it in debt, taxation, medical care, ethnic groups, drugs, immigration, foreign affairs, and so on.
Now, Trump’s Haihu manor has been searched, which has triggered fierce confrontation between supporters of both parties in the United States. Not only personal threats have been issued, but also violent incidents against the FBI have occurred. The word “civil war” has frequently appeared on American social networks. If the Federalists continue to fan the flames, the Democratic Party can only respond in a more polarized way, which will surely aggravate the tear of the United States.
Perhaps the outbreak of a “civil war” in the United States is not alarmist, and this result was buried long before the polarization of the struggle between the two parties in the United States. The $1.6 billion sky high donation only accelerated this point.