Title: “Dark Money” Secretly Funds the Radical Democrat Party’s “Misinformation” Campaign to Win in 2024
In case you missed the memo, truth doesn’t matter anymore.
Neither does debating ideas or examining and evaluating evidence to determine the likelihood of something being factually true or factually false.
The only thing that matters today is narrative – the story told by “experts” and endorsed by establishment politicians and by biased media talking heads.
This isn’t just true in politics – it’s also true in public health, climate change and in other areas of science.
And if you dare to express disagreement with the leftist narrative in any of these subjects – or even to question it – you are labeled a purveyor and spreader of ’misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’
The behavior of the radical pro-socialist/secularist illustrates the saying, “Truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged.”
What’s the difference between misinformation and disinformation, you ask?
Although the terms are often used interchangeably, ‘misinformation’ is false or inaccurate information – unintentionally getting the facts wrong.
‘Disinformation’ is false information which is deliberately shared with the intention of deceiving and misleading. It is knowingly and deliberately misstating the facts.
What is never open to question or debate is the content of the facts themselves. The “facts” are whatever supports the narrative that the radical politicians and the biased media want you to believe.
If the information and the statistical data that conservatives, libertarians, and Christians have doesn’t agree with the “facts” of the accepted narrative, then by definition, their information is misinformation.
If conservatives try to make the case that their facts are more accurate and true than the accepted narrative, they will be accused of lying on purpose – knowingly and deliberately – for the purpose of deceiving the public.
If Christians dare point out facts, they are accused of being Christian nationalists and attacked for “praying” over a crisis – prayer shaming.
Rarely do conservatives, libertarians, or Christians respond with authority of truth and demand that their accusers prove that their differing facts or interpretations are in fact misinformation. If they do fight back, they are often censored or “canceled.”
In an effort to silence public debate, the creators and the leaders of the leftist narratives in the U.S. have developed a new ‘misinformation research’ industry funded by a network of dark money non-profit organizations.
For example, there is one non-profit group managed by a consultant company called Arabella Advisors.
In case the term is new to you, ‘dark money’ is political spending meant to influence the decision of a voter – and thereby election results – in which the donor is not disclosed and the original source of the money is unknown.
Dark money is also used to support political candidates and/or to influence public policy.
Arabella Advisors, run by Eric Kessler, a former Bill Clinton official, manages certain administrative, legal, and philanthropic functions of several non-profit Funds, including:
- Hopewell Fund
- Media Democracy Fund
- New Venture Fund
- North Fund
- Sixteen Thirty Fund
- And others
These dark money Funds make donations to a variety of radical-leaning causes and pro-socialist Democratic candidates.
Some of them also sponsor research that looks at the online presence of conservatives, libertarians, and Christians and recommends strategies to mitigate the spread of what they call “misinformation” and “disinformation”.
As an example, the New Venture Fund sponsored a research project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. The study, called “The True Costs of Misinformation,” sought to determine the impacts of online misinformation on “vulnerable communities.”
Keep in mind that their definition of misinformation is simply any information – regardless of how vetted and documented and corroborated it is – that contradicts their narrative.
A presentation at the Carnegie Council titled “What is Driving Conservatism’s Post-Democratic Turn in America?” examined the impact of misinformation on the perceived “anti-democratic” attitudes of conservatives in the U.S.
The description of the presentation asked the question, “How did American Conservatism reach a point where the main political messages are either blatantly anti-democratic or outright falsehoods?”
The presentation description further alleged that “political partisanship” in the U.S. was “largely stoked by conservative propaganda and disinformation.”
A workshop session focused on strategies to reduce or mitigate the spread of misinformation. Presenters included researchers from the University of Washington and Google. Mitigation strategies discussed included:
- Legislative action to change election laws to curb misinformation
- Censorship to prohibit the spread of misinformation, i.e., unacceptable information
- “psychological inoculation” against misinformation
Another presentation examined ways to demonetize websites promoting “divisive disinformation on COVID.
The Hopewell Fund sponsored a research project that examined how misinformation spreads on Facebook via “superusers.” A research paper citing the results of the study was published in The Atlantic. It suggested censorship as the most effective way to curb misinformation.
“If each of Facebook’s 15,000 U.S. monitors,” the paper stated, “aggressively reviewed several dozen of the most active users and permanently removed those guilty of repeated violations, abuse on Facebook would drop drastically within days.”
The Media Democracy Fund partially funds the Disinfo Defense League, which describes itself as “a distributed national network of organizers, researchers and disinformation experts…”
The purpose of the Disinfo Defense League is to disrupt online disinformation campaigns that target Black, Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander and other minority groups.
Members of the League include left-wing and progressive activist organizations such as Free Press, the Women’s March and Ultraviolet.
A group called Accountable Tech is a registered trade name of the North Fund. The group organized a campaign to pressure advertisers to boycott Twitter after Elon Musk took over the platform, citing the threat of the spread of misinformation as a concern.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund explicitly donates its funds to Democratic Political Action Committees (PACs) and to Democrat candidates. Other Funds within the Arabella Advisors network support leftist and Democrat-affiliated groups that engage in issue-based advocacy activities and electoral activism.
Overall, Arabella Advisors and its network of Funds use charitable giving and tax exemption laws to aid Democratic electoral victories, performing an end run around the IRS prohibition against electioneering.
So says Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at Capital Research Center (CRC), a conservative watchdog group that tracks liberal financial influence.
“Nonprofits pour hundreds of millions of dollars into voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns which microtarget likely Democratic voters,” Ludwig said. “The Arabella nonprofits are a massive funnel to shift those millions from foundations and mega-donors to these professional activists.”
You may check out this: “Dark Money”: How Progressive Politicians and Groups are Winning