“Trump is good for people like you and me.” I first heard this refrain in 2016 while trying to raise money to ensure that the serial bankrupt from New York didn’t become leader of the free world. The speaker was a political refugee from cold war eastern Europe. He and his relatives had been given citizenship by the US; he had benefited from its welfare system and been educated in California’s public schools and colleges. He later went on to start and sell a technology company for billions of dollars.
At the time I was nonplussed by his comment and perplexed by his lack of empathy for the less fortunate. But his remark has echoed loudly again over these past few weeks as a handful of Silicon Valley financiers, including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, have expressed their support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Much as I disagree with their endorsements, I sympathise with some of their arguments. Here in California, the Democratic Party has exercised a monopoly for the past couple of decades that is largely financed by deep-pocketed unions representing teachers, prison guards and service workers.