Adding to ...

A person does not have to be a _neither here no there_ to be a conduit by the wealthy and powerful. Single voter issues are another means.

_Rob Schenck_ [0] anti-abortion activism was a great tool for politicians to gain power. _The Dark Money Game_ [1] documentary goes it great length of highlight this feature of "democracy". His mind set at the time was that the wealthy are paying to end abortion and that is a good thing. Indirectly, he helped the speaker of the house, Larry Householder [2], gain enough power to launder money through bribery and force tax payers to bail to a corrupt power company's fail nuclear infrastructure [3].

Rob Schenck has since supported legalized abortion after sitting on the bed side of a women who slowly suffered to death from complications which an abortion would of kept her alive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Schenck [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Money_Game [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Householder [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

Not to detract from your larger point, but if he had gotten a 'real job', it's almost certain the tab for that job would also be picked up by high-net-worth individuals and corporate benefactors. Except that job would be in the direct service of making them richer rather than promoting their ideology (which is probably in service of making them richer after all anyway). I mean wouldn't Fox News talking head count as a real job?

One might wonder, however, if it's kind of different now because it can be "less personal?"

Like, it doesn't have to be "a small number of very powerful rich benefactors who know exactly what they're doing" -- it could be some less rich, or less powerful people who know how to leverage "the internet;" or even something like "the internet sort of made this on its own?"

>"Charlie Kirk is neither here nor there"

Best way I've ever seen it put. There is no "essential" Charlie Kirk, just as there's no "essential" of any of these talking heads. They are a reflection of beliefs from the person's payroll they're on. He didn't even think twice about the Epstein files with the MAGA base imploded, and was happy to say - to a camera - that he "Trusts his friends" to sort it out.

which books would you recommend? chomsky/spengler