Dems Frustrated, Donors Pulling Back Cash
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/democrats-donors-doge/2025/02/16/id/1199273/
Sunday, 16 February 2025 10:04 AM EST
As President Donald Trump drains the swamp and DOGE chief Elon Musk roots out waste, fraud, and abuse, even the frustrated opposition is resorting to cuts on funding: Their donors are turning off the spigots.
Liberals activist groups like Center for American Progress, End Citizens United, Run for Something, and LGBTQ activists GLSEN and Human Rights Campaign are cutting staffs as the donor money is drying up โ a common cycle after losing a presidential election, but The New York Times interviewed experts saying "this year is different."
Unlike 2017 after Trump first won and Democrats piled on the cash to obstruct and oppose, Trump has a road peppered with far fewer billionaire speed bumps as he moves forward with his agenda at maximum speed.
"No one is giving until they see a plan for how we are going to better navigate this unprecedented situation and stop acting like this is a normal administration," Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a political consultant close to Silicon Valley, told the Times.
Musk and Vice President JD Vance's Silicon Valley ties are helping to crimp the liberal funding firehose, if not redirecting the flow to Trump and Republicans.
There is "an awful lot of pressure" to either back Trump or at least not spend to fight him at this point, longtime Musk friend and billionaire Silicon Valley donor Jeff Skoll told the Times.
"There are people who were absolutely against Trump, never Trumpers, who fear that they'll be retaliated against and they'll have to leave the country," Skoll, who had pumped 10s of millions into Democrats in recent years before now posing with Trump, told the Times.
"Folks who wish to oppose him โ it may take some time before they gather up the courage."
Reid Hoffman is another famed former Democrat donating billionaire who is withholding cash because "he thinks that the Democratic Party strategy needs to reform, and when it does, heโs happy to hear new ideas and new pitches," a spokeswoman told the Times.
"There's a greater than 50% chance that there will be repercussions from a misdirection and corruption of the institutions of state to respond to my having tried to help Harris get elected," Hoffman told the "The Diary of a CEO" podcast.
It not just Silicon Valley Democrat donors going into hiding. The areas around the Beltway are showing multimillionaire properties going on the market en masse, according to an X post showing the phenomenon that got Kari Lake's attention this weekend.
"The gravy train is ending," Lake responded. "No more sponging off of we the people."
Jilted by the near $2 billion laid to waste by former Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign โ not to mention DOGE following the money that could lead to Trump DOJ investigations โ Democrat donors are now holding back on their longtime flow to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, according to the Times.
"People are mostly on the ropes or on the mat waiting for leadership, scratching our heads and giving grace to Schumer and Jeffries, who are saying, 'Pick your battles,'" Democrat consultant Robert Raben told the Times.
A wealthy donor for former President Joe Biden, forced out by his own party in favor of Harris, John Morgan is returning the favor on Democrats.
"For me, it's going to be giving to people, not party," Morgan, who says he left the party to become independent, told the Times. "The DNC learned nothing from the last election."
Turning to Judiciary Obstruction
If they cannot buy their way into obstructing Trump, Democrats will at least have the option to sue their way toward that goal or just vote against it with whatever congressional power they can, CNN reported Sunday.
"I'm not going to stand by and support an effort to dismantle our democracy through the budgeting process," Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told CNN.
"We've got to do everything we can, every tool in the toolbox to oppose what is actually happening right before our eyes."
Right now, lawsuits and congressional gridlock with razor-thin margins are all Democrats have to work with as funding for activism is on hold.
"Keep hope alive," Jeffries told CNN. "The Trump administration is losing in court, not winning. Over and over and over again.
"And they have not achieved a single legislative victory."
But, as voting cycles go, the opposition will eventually regain momentum.
"In three weeks, the public mood has gone from apathy to fear to anger," Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., told CNN. "And I think the next thing in that cycle is action."