In this episode of The Bill Walton Show, Bill wades into the murky waters of the Left’s “dark money” manipulation of American politics with Scott Walter and Kristen Eastlick with the Capital Research Center.
We often use the phrase follow the money. Scott and Kristen are among the best at doing just that.
Centerpiece of the discussion is Scott’s new book Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America.
In it, he reveals the vast influence that the Arabella Network - by deploying billions of dollars - plays in American politics under the guise of progressive philanthropy.
To name just a few issues, Arabella has played a major role in battles over Supreme Court nominations, abortion, men in women’s sports, school discipline, Medicare for All, environmental policies, fake local news outlets, and the “Zuck Bucks” used to manipulate elections. Many believe that most of the attacks on American institutions by the Left are financed and organized in part by Arabella.
This episode’s conversation gets into revealing detail about how this network operates as a "dark money” brain trust with a for-profit manager (of course) at its epicenter, commanding several billion dollar nonprofit action groups.
These funds in turn create hundreds of “pop-up” entities that appear suddenly, giving the appearance of huge popular groundswells, when in fact they’re the creations of Arabella and other similarly deeply disguised operations on the Left.
Rather than being innocent grassroots outfits, they are the creation of their secretive dark money operations.
The sheer quantity of money that has flowed through Arabella’s channels is staggering. In the 2020 election cycle, Arabella’s nonprofits took in $2.4 billion, more than the fundraising of the Democratic and Republican National Committees combined. In the 2022 election cycle, Arabella’s fundraising rose to $3 billion.
Arabella is a big part of the reason for the Left’s stunning advantage in money and sophisticated political machinery that shapes our lives and elections.
Scott and Kristen describe the “three rivers of money” flowing into politics.
“With the first river of hard dollars, traditional political giving, the Left has an advantage, but it's slight,” explains Scott. “In the second river, the independent expenditures, dark money and super PACs, the left has a little advantage, but it’s also slight. But in the third river,” and here Scott grows animated, “where the Left’s charitable public policy groups operate, it's not even close.
It’s shocking to learn how Arabella has covertly developed the darkest of “dark money” networks. It’s also shocking to learn who has been by far the largest single individual contributor to the abortion industry to the tune of $6+ billion. (Revealed at the 18:36 minute mark).
In fact, the further you go in this episode, the more disturbing the political swamp and the people behind it reveal themselves to be.
If you really want to follow the money, start here.
