I don't want to hear another goddamn word about the Koch brothers’ paltry $400 million
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Not just “racial equity”: JPMorganChase has pledged $1 trillion to spread global warming panic
Thomas Edsall, one of the few decent contributors at the New York Times, published a valuable piece of journalism Wednesday on the sheer size of philanthropic commitment to left-wing “racial justice” measures.
With nearly 3,000 words of interviews and assorted content, he explores how much money — nearly $25 billionit turns out — was donated by progressive elites to divisive racial endeavors after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.
Before Floyd’s death, Candid — a website for wealthy “people who want to change the world with the resources they need to do it” — said philanthropic entities provided about $3 billion in “racial equity funding” from 2011-19. Since then, Candid found, “50,887 grants valued at $12.7 billion” and “177 pledges valued at $11.6 billion.”
Among the top funders are the Ford Foundation, at $3 billion; Mackenzie Scott, at $2.9 billion; JPMorgan Chase & Co. Contributions Program, at $2.1 billion; W.K. Kellogg Foundation, $1.2 billion; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, $1.1 billion; Silicon Valley Community Foundation, $1 billion; Walton Family Foundation, $689 million; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, $438 million; and the Foundation to Promote Open Society, $350.5 million.
This is the largest amount of philanthropy ever spent on one cause in such a short period — probably by a factor of 10.
Which is not entirely bad news: the Times frets that all this money is steering the Democrat suck-ups far to the left of where most voters, including Democrats, are. Of course, those cretins are mostly in flyover country, so they can and should be ignored, but they do vote.
Some liberal strategists worry about unintended political consequences from this surge in virtue signaling.
Matt Bennett, senior vice president of Third Way, a center-left think tank, told Edsall:
“Whether inadvertent or not, some progressive foundations are funding work that is shortsighted and harmful to the long-term progress they hope to achieve. It’s crystal clear that some ideas being pushed by activists and funded by lefty foundations go beyond that paradigm, treading into territory that is flat-out politically toxic and that undermine our collective goals.”
Edsall later quotes New Republic editor Michael Tomasky, who recently wrote, “It’s an undeniable fact that Democratic Party elites, progressive activists, foundation and think-tank officials, and most opinion journalists are well to the left of the party’s rank and file.”
Correct, and white guilt elites still refuse to understand that the most moderate Democrat voters are disproportionately Latino and black.
“For leaders of the Democratic Party, these developments pose a particularly frustrating problem because they pay an electoral price for policy proposals and rhetoric that are outside party control,” Edsall aptly concluded.
Still, it’s a lot of money, especially when you add the billions these same groups are pouring into other liberal causes, and the billion-or-so that Soros is spending to place Secretaries of States and District Attorneys in control, it’s an amazing sum. Especially when amplified by an eagerly-complacent media,
