{"id":28269,"date":"2016-08-18T07:51:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T12:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=28269"},"modified":"2016-08-18T07:51:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T12:51:28","slug":"man-who-used-to-work-for-dan-backer-how-we-killed-the-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=28269","title":{"rendered":"Man Who Used to Work for Dan Backer: “How We Killed the Tea Party”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The headline on “How We Killed the Tea Party<\/a>” overstates the case, but the movement isn’t what it once was, or could have been. And it does identify a major culprit:<\/p>\n

As we watch the Republican Party tear itself to shreds over Donald Trump, perhaps it\u2019s time to take note of another conservative political phenomenon that the GOP nominee has utterly eclipsed: the Tea Party. The Tea Party movement is pretty much dead now, but it didn\u2019t die a natural death. It was murdered\u2014and it was an inside job. In a half decade, the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form of pyramid scheme that transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural, poorer Southerners and Midwesterners to bicoastal political operatives.<\/p>\n

What began as an organic, policy-driven grass-roots movement was drained of its vitality and resources by national political action committees that dunned the movement\u2019s true believers endlessly for money to support its candidates and causes. The PACs used that money first to enrich themselves and their vendors and then deployed most of the rest to search for more \u201cprospects.\u201d In Tea Party world, that meant mostly older, technologically unsavvy people willing to divulge personal information through \u201cpetitions\u201d\u2014which only made them prey to further attempts to lighten their wallets for what they believed was a good cause. While the solicitations continue, the audience has greatly diminished because of a lack of policy results and changing political winds.<\/p>\n

I was an employee at one of the firms that ran these operations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After stating that, I wasn’t at all surprised to see this: “For 18 months ending in 2013, I worked for one of these consultants, Dan Backer, who has served as treasurer for dozens of PACs, many now defunct, through his law and consulting firm.”<\/p>\n

Yep, Dan Backer<\/a>, who I’ve been sounding the scam alarm about since 2014<\/a>. Backer has been running scam PACs like Patriots for Economic Freedom, Conservative Action Fund<\/a>, Stop Hillary PAC<\/a>, and a host of others. <\/p>\n

And Backer is now cashing in on Donald Trump’s name:<\/p>\n

This cycle, Backer and MacKenzie have kept Trump\u2019s lawyers busy. Despite Trump\u2019s constant protests about \u201ccorrupt\u201d super PACs, MacKenzie started \u201cPatriots for Trump\u201d and Backer founded \u201cTrumPAC.\u201d MacKenzie shuttered Patriots when the Trump campaign complained, although the Facebook page remains active. The campaign persuaded Backer to change TrumPAC\u2019s name to \u201cGreat America PAC.\u201d But the PAC begged off requests to shutter and \u201crefund any funds raised\u201d based on Trump\u2019s candidacy. Jesse Benton, Great America\u2019s chief strategist and formerly a Ron Paul operative, explained the PAC would remain active because Trump would need \u201ca robust and effective finance organization \u2026 after he secured the nomination.\u201d By law, the campaign can have no say in how this \u201cfinance organization\u201d spends its money, though its website still prominently features the candidate and his trademark slogan. It pledged to raise $20 million dollars before the Republican convention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yes, I wrote about Great America PAC<\/a> as well. <\/p>\n

Evidently Scott MacKenzie is puling the same scam. “An analysis found 10 conservative PACs whose treasurer was Scott MacKenzie spent 92 percent of the $17.5 million they raised on operating expenses, and less than 1 percent on candidate support.”<\/p>\n

The lesson, yet again, is never donate to a random email or mail solicitation, and when you do donate, use a candidate’s direct donation page. <\/p>\n

(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The headline on “How We Killed the Tea Party” overstates the case, but the movement isn’t what it once was, or could have been. And it does identify a major culprit: As we watch the Republican Party tear itself to shreds over Donald Trump, perhaps it\u2019s time to take note of another conservative political phenomenon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":25,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,18],"tags":[1980,2091,2321,1167,2862,1881,2865,3423,245],"class_list":["post-28269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-republicans","tag-2016-election","tag-2016-presidential-race","tag-dan-backer","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-pac","tag-republicans","tag-scott-mackenzie","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28269"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28297,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28269\/revisions\/28297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}