/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

Meet the American George Soros. Billionare hedge fund manager Tom Steyer has invested millions in buying TV adds to spread support for Donald Trump's impeachment. He has also spent millions of dollars in campaigns against Republican politicians in 10 important swing states, mostly through his organization NextGen. His most important political pet issues, besides impeaching Trump, are environmental issues. He may be intending to run for president in 2020
>“I actually believe this president is an urgent danger to our country and to our democracy,” says Steyer. “I have a genuine, deep belief that he is a threat to us… that will only grow.”
>Steyer says he thinks the threat Trump poses must be tackled first before we can make headway on the other progressive causes he spends his personal wealth on, including climate change, immigration, health care, and education.
>Steyer became a billionaire as the founder and principal of Farallon Capital investment firm. But he left the private sector and founded NextGen America, a non-profit organization and Super PAC aimed at motivating young voters to action.
http://archive.is/qo9OU

>Steyer had never run for public office. But he was a prolific Obama fundraiser, and Obama had won. After he left his investment firm, Farallon Capital, in 2012, he founded an advocacy group called NextGen America; NextGen had backed winning Democrats in high-profile gubernatorial or congressional campaigns.
>When Steyer got the idea, in mid-2017, of impeaching Trump, Mueller had made zero indictments in his investigation regarding Russian ties to Trump’s campaign. But Steyer viewed the scenario via a cockroach analogy: “There’s never one cockroach,” he would say. If someone has done one bad thing the public knows about, there might be a dozen bad things the public doesn’t.
>So he created the petition, and made the ad, and figured that impeachment-worthy evidence would catch up. Then he made six more ads. Then he assembled a panel of psychiatrists to critique the president’s mental fitness. Then, a panel of constitutional scholars to analyze the chances of removing Trump from office.
>Then, somewhere in the middle, Mueller filed charges against several individuals, including former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort and a baker’s dozen Russians, and Steyer felt buoyed that he was on the right track.
http://archive.is/I0OKF

His most passionate issue is Climate Change, as you can see in an interview with Slate Magazine:
>"If you’re talking about climate, you have one side that is trying to use scientific evidence to figure out the best economic health and safety pattern for the United States of America and you have another side that is lying their ass off for money and for the support of their biggest donors. That is not equivalent. That’s not even close to equivalent. So when people say, “Oh, you’re being too partisan,” telling the truth is too partisan. Accepting science is too partisan. Baloney! That’s baloney. What is going on is that the Republican Party has sold out the truth on climate to their biggest fossil fuel donors, and they want to be treated politely and go to a cocktail party and be treated as if they were truth tellers. No, they are not! They are lying their ass off. And they know it!"
http://archive.is/RpDMp

Many of his efforts have focused on Wisconson:
>Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund executive turned liberal political activist, has committed to spending $30 million in 10 states to register and energize progressive, millennial voters — $2.5 million of which will fund efforts in Wisconsin, home of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.
>In Wisconsin, [NextGen] will focus its efforts on supporting Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Democratic challengers to Walker and Ryan.
>Steyer... believes Walker, Ryan and Trump are "deeply misguided and doing absolutely immoral things."
>He and Walker agree on one thing: they see Wisconsin as a purple state, despite the fact that its voters supported Trump in 2016 and its legislative and executive branches have been under Republican control for seven years.
http://archive.is/n06Ja

The same is true of Michigan:
>Billionaire activist Tom Steyer plans to spend at least $3.5 million in Michigan to engage and register young voters ahead of the 2018 election.
>Steyer’s NextGen America said this week it will target a minimum of 700,000 young Michigan voters through mail and digital outreach. It is hoping to influence congressional contests and the contest to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.
>“Young people are mobilizing across Michigan to create progressive change and demand action on issues like clean water, access to health care and gun violence,”
(refused to Archive)

And Pennsylvania and elsewhere:
>The debate will be NextGen America’s latest foray into Pennsylvania’s elections this cycle: it has 70 staffers on the ground here, a tally that’s expected to grow to more than 100. The group’s outreach is focused on younger voters, and it has organizers at Lehigh University, Kutztown University, Muhlenberg College and Northampton Community College in addition to a digital campaign.
>Steyer has said his group will spend $30 million on organizing and turning out young voters in an effort to help Democrats take control of the U.S. House.
>He’s also launched a separate $20 million ad campaign urging the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
http://archive.is/WqV53

An Article from "The Center for Public Intergrity" openly compares him to George Soros and the Koch Brothers for the way he finances everything
>Steyer, a hedge-fund-manager-turned-environmentalist who hails from California, is the closest thing Democrats have to the Republican-backing Koch brothers. His recent political contributions eclipse even those of liberal billionaire George Soros. He plans to spend $30 million on the 2018 midterms alone, and his NextGen America super PAC has been a juggernaut for left-leaning candidates in recent years.
>After a town hall meeting in Largo, Maryland, on Tuesday — one of the early stops on his anti-Trump “Need to Impeach” tour — Steyer acknowledged he’s spending a lot of money, just as the Kochs, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and others on the right are.
>But Steyer sees himself as a different kind of billionaire bankroller: someone who's opened himself up to the proletariat instead of cloistering himself in the comfort of exclusive gatherings packed with 1 percenters.
http://archive.is/GM0VE

There is speculation that Tom Steyer is actually setting himself up t run for presidnent in 2020
>Ask a professional Democrat for his or her opinion on billionaire political donor Tom Steyer, and the answer you often get is a variation of the following: Why would someone with so much money spend it all on a fruitless attempt to impeach Donald Trump?
>Press them for their thoughts in private, however, and many concede that the man funding a $40 million campaign to get rid of the current president is not just a gifted self-promoter, but is, in fact, building one of the true powerhouse entities within the Democratic ecosystem. Steyer is poised to play a massive role in the midterms and pull the party in the direction of his choosing. He’s also set himself up incredibly well—perhaps better than any other potential aspirant—for a serious presidential bid in 2020.
>“If I were a rich person and I wanted to run for president,” said one top Democratic strategist, “I would be doing exactly what he’s doing.”
>What Steyer is doing is acquiring the equivalent of prime political real estate. Through his self-funded Need to Impeach campaign, he has now built an email list of more than 5.1 million members, a total that one former presidential campaign manager called “staggering” and a top digital adviser called “one of the biggest Democratic lists out there.”
http://archive.is/2PnXQ
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