1/ Big piece from @nlanard on Blake Masters, the Peter Thiel protege running for Senate in AZ. Thiel has put $13 MILLION into this race. They're willing to move fast and break things, like maybe democracy itself. bit.ly/3Of8e3h

2/Masters’ other influences include Curtis Yarvin, who describes himself as America’s foremost absolute monarchist blogger; Murray Rothbard, the reactionary economist; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber (with caveats).

3/ Masters trolled his Stanford co-op by rapping while wearing supposed Native American war paint, in a video shared with @MotherJones. “I’ve got the war paint on, as you can see,” he rapped. "Who said what about cultural insensitivity?” www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=9ddezg7wFaQ&feature=emb_logo

4/ Peter Thiel has spend $13 million to back Blake Masters, and $15 million to back JD Vance. Those are the single biggest amounts spent on candidates, and he's backing a slew of others:

5/ @timothypmurphy wrote about the first candidate that Thiel helped propel into the Senate, Josh Hawley: www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/josh-hawley-coup-populist/

6/ So if Masters and Vance win in November, that's THREE US Senators deeply beholden to one billionaire who doesn't democracy and freedom are compatible: www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/blake-masters-peter-thiel-donald-trump-arizona-senate-mark-kelly...