The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency

[ornotna]

Last month, when President Donald Trump toured a Boeing aircraft plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, he saw a familiar face in the crowd that greeted him: Patrick Caddell, a former Democratic political operative and pollster who, for forty-five years, has been prodding insurgent Presidential candidates to attack the Washington establishment. Caddell, who lives in Charleston, is perhaps best known for helping Jimmy Carter win the 1976 Presidential race. He is also remembered for having collaborated with his friend Warren Beatty on the 1998 satire “Bulworth.” In that film, a kamikaze candidate abandons the usual talking points and excoriates both the major political parties and the media; voters love his unconventionality, and he becomes improbably popular. If the plot sounds familiar, there’s a reason: in recent years, Caddell has offered political advice to Trump. He has not worked directly for the President, but at least as far back as 2013 he has been a contractor for one of Trump’s biggest financial backers: Robert Mercer, a reclusive Long Island hedge-fund manager, who has become a major force behind the Trump Presidency.

During the past decade, Mercer, who is seventy, has funded an array of political projects that helped pave the way for Trump’s rise. Among these efforts was public-opinion research, conducted by Caddell, showing that political conditions in America were increasingly ripe for an outsider candidate to take the White House. Caddell told me that Mercer “is a libertarian—he despises the Republican establishment,” and added, “He thinks that the leaders are corrupt crooks, and that they’ve ruined the country.”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency





Heard the interview of Jane Mayer on Fresh Air about the story, scary stuff.
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/22/521083950/inside-the-wealthy-family-that-has-been-funding-steve-bannon-s-plan-for-years

[defacto7]

1. Sorry I don't give a more intelligent reply but

He's a nutcase. The kind of nut you don't want near the knife drawer let alone clandestinely controlling your country. He's why citizens united is the people's arch-enemy.

[ornotna]

3. They are a crazy bunch of people

Quite frankly the way they think is un-American.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

2. That NPR link is disturbing

Billionaire Mercers literally think people with no money have no value; funded Breitbart; funded Trump; installed Bannon and others into White House.

The goat piss research is creepy too. I wonder if they're connected to Russia as well. They sound like diabolical creeps. I wonder why this isn't in the MSM, cuz it should be.

[ornotna]

4. Yes it is

Listening to the interview is what prompted me to find story and post it. It was eye opening for sure.