There are a bunch of rich people in crypto who have decided they want to have their voices heard, and so they have started donating to political candidates. However, the platforms of the candidates they are supporting are deeply fascinating.
Let’s take a look at how many people on Jesse’s donation list do not believe in democratic elections.
This support will be hand-waved away, but the reality is that Jesse is helping advance the political careers of people who are taking active steps to weaken and dismantle democracy, and that is a difficult thing to justify.
Consider how many of them want to roll back Roe v. Wade, reducing medical care available to women broadly:
Others want to restrict marriage to only between a man and a woman:
We can continue this analysis on a variety of issues, but the core takeaway needs to be that Jesse Powell chose to support candidates who want to advance anti-democratic, anti-abortion, and anti-gay polices. Jesse may try to justify it by saying that his only determining characteristic for this was their support for crypto, but ignoring clear externalities of your decisions does not excuse them. When we talk about how crypto wants to transform the world, it’s valuable to pause and reflect on what transformation they seem to be supporting, and in many respects it seems to be a regression.
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