THE EXTENSIVE AND WEALTHY RIGHT-WING FUNDING NETWORK

There was a vast right-wing conspiracy in 1998 when Hillary Clinton called it out for attacking her and President Clinton. It’s only grown bigger and better funded since then, although it’s not so much of a conspiracy any more as it’s largely out in the open. It is getting more extreme and investigative journalists recently uncovered a piece of it that’s explicitly pushing right-wing Christian nationalism into U.S. politics, policies, and laws.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

You may remember First Lady Hillary Clinton using the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” in 1998 to describe the source of the attacks on her and President Clinton. Although she didn’t originate the phrase, she put it into the mainstream of American dialogue. Although the assertion that there is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” is pooh-poohed and mocked by Republicans to this day, there was and is a lot of truth to it. When Hillary Clinton was asked in 2016, when she was running for President, if she still believed in the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” she answered in the affirmative and added that it was even better funded then than in 1998. She also noted that it was probably no longer correct to call it a conspiracy as it was much more out in the open.

Today, it’s very much out in the open and its funding has grown dramatically. However, many of its big funders do go out of their way to hide their identities or at least their connections to specific activities. They contribute to right-wing activities through dark money, not-for-profit groups that do not have to report their donors. They use networks of organizations (including shell corporations) and super Political Action Committees (PACs), and transfer funds among them, sometimes in multiple steps, to launder contributions and obscure donors. All of this was, of course, enabled by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United (and related) decisions that gave wealthy individuals and corporations the right, based on free speech claims, to spend unlimited sums of money for political purposes.

Perhaps the best known and largest piece of the right-wing funding network is the one establish by the billionaire Koch brothers. It funnels hundreds of millions of dollars through dozens of related entities every election cycle. A key entity is the Americans for Prosperity super PAC, founded in 2004, which has already spent over $70 million on 2024 campaigns. In addition to Koch contributions, it also receives large contributions from other wealthy Republican supporters such as the Walton family (owners of Walmart).

Paul Krugman in his 2005 book, The Great Unraveling, wrote about the network of wealthy individuals and foundations that fund the vast right-wing network. They fund a coordinated set of Republican and right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups, law firms, and media outlets (including Fox, founded in 1996, and talk radio). These organizations push their right-wing agenda, as well as attack Democrats and progressive policies. Krugman noted that this right-wing network of funders and organizations far surpasses in funding, size, coordination, and influence anything on the Democratic, left, or progressive political side. He also noted that those pushing the more extreme elements of the right-wing agenda were (and are) not conservatives but “radical, revolutionaries,” including members of President G. W. Bush’s administration. In hindsight, Krugman was clearly right, in that the goals and policies they were pushing were direct precursors of the undemocratic, authoritarian vision of the Trump / MAGA agenda today. (If you’re interested, the Trump / MAGA agenda has been written down in detail in Project 2025. I’ve previously posted about it here and here.)

Recently, ProPublica and an investigative journalism partner, Documented, uncovered a new piece of the vast, right-wing funding network. A charity (a 501(c)(3), non-profit, tax-exempt organization that does not have to reveal its donors) called Ziklag is planning to spend nearly $12 million to promote Christian nationalism in U.S. politics. It is funded by a network of very wealthy, radical, Christian donors, including the high-profile billionaire David Green, who founded and owns Hobby Lobby (a chain of arts and crafts stores). He has long been active in pushing his view of Christian-based policy, such as having the right to exclude abortion and morning-after pill coverage from the company’s health insurance for its 46,000 employees. He is a major financial supporter of evangelical organizations. Ziklag is also supported by the billionaire Uihlein family (owners of an office supply company and heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune) and the Wallers (owners of Jockey apparel). It claims to have 125 members and recruits new members who are conservative Christians with a net worth of over $25 million. [1]

Ziklag’s long-term goal is to embed its right-wing version of Christianity in all walks of American society. Its 2024 efforts are focused on using pastors and churches to turnout voters, motivating them around issues of “parents’ rights” (e.g., to ban books and content they don’t like from schools) and opposition to transgendered individuals and policies. It is also planning to use artificial intelligence software to drive challenges to hundreds of thousands of voters in swing states. In 2022, Ziklag gave $600,000 to the Conservative Partnership Institute which funds “election integrity” efforts led by Cleta Mitchell (one of the lawyers on Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State in 2021 asking him to “find” enough votes to make Trump the election winner in Georgia). Ziklag is planning to give another $800,000 to these efforts for the 2024 election. Its stated goal is to remove 1 million supposedly ineligible voters from the voting rolls in swing states.

Although the $12 million Ziklag plans on spending is a tiny amount compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the vast right-wing network of funders, it’s significant because it highlights the growing extremism of these efforts. It’s explicitly pushing right-wing Christian nationalism into U.S. politics, policies, and laws. It has given funding to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing Christian legal group that led the effort to overturn the right to an abortion (i.e., Roe v. Wade). It has also provided funding to Turning Point USA, a charity working to promote right-wing student activism, and many other right-wing advocacy groups. It claims to have organized a coalition that played a major role in getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2020.

As a charity, receiving donations that are tax deductible, Ziklag is prohibited by IRS regulations from engaging in political campaigns on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate. Therefore, many of Ziklag’s activities appear to be illegal. Unfortunately, the IRS has been lax in enforcing regulations prohibiting or limiting political activity by tax-exempt organizations, so some of them, like Ziklag, appear to be flagrantly violating the law.

[1]      Kroll, A., (ProPublica) & Surgey, N., (Documented), 7/13/24, “Inside Ziklag, the secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the election and change the country,” (https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election)