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If you dislike the Koch Brothers — well you’re just going to LOVE this Bilkenaire …
Move over Charles and David, there’s a new kid in town …
The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency
How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency.
[...]
Mercer is the co-C.E.O. of Renaissance Technologies, which is among the most profitable hedge funds in the country. A brilliant computer scientist, he helped transform the financial industry through the innovative use of trading algorithms. But he has never given an interview explaining his political views.
[...]
Private money has long played a big role in American elections. When there were limits on how much a single donor could give, however, it was much harder for an individual to have a decisive impact. Now, Potter said, “a single billionaire can write an eight-figure check and put not just their thumb but their whole hand on the scale — and we often have no idea who they are.” He continued, “Suddenly, a random billionaire can change politics and public policy — to sweep everything else off the table — even if they don’t speak publicly, and even if there’s almost no public awareness of his or her views.”
Through a spokesman, Mercer declined to discuss his role in launching Trump.
According to Wikipedia:
2016 U.S. election
According to the Center for Responsive Politics Mercer is currently ranked the #1 donor to federal candidates in the 2016 election cycle, ahead of Renaissance founder James Harris Simons who is ranked #5 and generally donates to Democrats.[16] By June 2016, Mercer had donated $2 million to John R. Bolton's super PAC and $668,000 to the Republican National Committee.[16] Mercer was a major financial supporter of the 2016 presidential campaign of Ted Cruz,[23] contributing $11 million to a super PAC associated with the candidate.[24] Reporter Zachary Mider, writing for Bloomberg in January 2016, called Mercer "the biggest single donor" in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.[4]
Mercer was a major supporter of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for president.[6] Mercer and his daughter played a role in the elevation of Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway into senior roles in the Trump campaign.[21] Rebekah worked with Conway on the Cruz Super-PAC Keep the Promise in the 2016 Republican primaries.[8] Mercer also financed a Super PAC, Make America Number One, which supported Trump's campaign.[21] Nick Patterson, a former colleague of Mercer's, has said, "In my view, Trump wouldn't be President if not for Bob.[12]
Not bad for someone who was once a simple “programmer”. Mercer’s trading algorithms are doing SO well in fact — that he now owes the IRS $6.8 Billion in back-taxes. Which of course, he will be fighting in court. Perhaps this explains Mercer’s rather minor foray into “investing” in the Trump crew last year. Afterall Trump has been known to “take care” of his friend$ in high places, if you know what I mean.
Well if that wasn’t enough to Love/Hate the guy — there’s this little overlooked tidbit: Mercer has used his computer “genius” to data-mine the public data (your “Like” histories) available in social media, to build a “physiological search engine for people”. Those various user profiles are categorized, and then in turn, tricked into staying home on Voting Day, by a steady stream of fake-news stories, custom-tailored for the particular “hot-button issue” of each demographic group.
Those Mercer-generated fake-news stories, are unsuspectingly fed through their Facebook feeds, by auto-generated Facebook users (ie “bots”) — designed to look like “normal people” residing nearby in your locale. Talk about being duped by a “jury of your peers”. Be wary people, that next clarifying comment you reply with, may be to mini-AI agent, programmed to send back a dozen different re-enforcing responses.
Sounds like Science Fiction, but sadly it is more like Science Fact. This very ambitious Billionaire Mercer used his computer genius, through his front company of SCL which later morphed into Cambridge Analytica, to push the Leave.EU Campaign “over the top” in Britain. Such Micro-targeting Messaging was key to their Brexit success, against all odds.
Barely a year later the Mercer-magic, via Cambridge Analytica was back at work again, targeting the Midwestern “marks” in the USA — in order to give his Candidate Trump that razor-thin margin of victory — of 70000 Votes across 3 states. Hmmm, I wonder how many bots that took — to get 70,000 Democrats and Independents “so disgusted with Hillary” — to just stay Home, and sit this one out? Probably far fewer than we think, Code is easy & cheap to copy, and re-copy, and re-copy.
Such was the Mercer-inspired Micro-targeting that led to the Trump success in America, once again against all odds. Of course it didn’t hurt, that Steve Bannon was a vice president of Cambridge Analytica to help re-direct those “automated” resources.
Afterall Bannon, another devious savant, knows a thing or two about “Social Engineering” … (aka. “taking their culture back”):
Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media
by Carole Cadwalladr, theguardian.com — Feb 27, 2017
Robert Mercer very rarely speaks in public and never to journalists, so to gauge his beliefs you have to look at where he channels his money: a series of yachts, all called Sea Owl; a $2.9m model train set; climate change denial (he funds a climate change denial thinktank, the Heartland Institute); and what is maybe the ultimate rich man’s plaything — the disruption of the mainstream media. In this he is helped by his close associate Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager and now chief strategist. The money he gives to the Media Research Center, with its mission of correcting “liberal bias” is just one of his media plays. There are other bigger, and even more deliberate strategies, and shining brightly, the star at the centre of the Mercer media galaxy, is Breitbart.
It was $10m of Mercer’s money that enabled Bannon to fund Breitbart — a rightwing news site, set up with the express intention of being a Huffington Post for the right. It has launched the careers of Milo Yiannopoulos and his like, regularly hosts antisemitic and Islamophobic views, and is currently being boycotted by more than 1,000 brands after an activist campaign. It has been phenomenally successful: the 29th most popular site in America with 2bn page views a year. It’s bigger than its inspiration, the Huffington Post, bigger, even, than PornHub. It’s the biggest political site on Facebook. The biggest on Twitter.
Prominent rightwing journalist Andrew Breitbart, who founded the site but died in 2012, told Bannon that they had “to take back the culture”. And, arguably, they have, though American culture is only the start of it. In 2014, Bannon launched Breitbart London, telling the New York Times it was specifically timed ahead of the UK’s forthcoming election. It was, he said, the latest front “in our current cultural and political war”. France and Germany are next.
[...] [emphasis added]
That article goes on to explain, that Mercer’s company Cambridge Analytica makes the “boastful” claims, of using what amounts to “psyops” (psychological operations) — to bend unsuspecting Voters to their conservative “cultural will”:
On its website, Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters — its USP is to use this data to understand people’s deepest emotions and then target them accordingly. The system, according to Albright, amounted to a “propaganda machine”.
This emerging science of “psychographics” is an interesting and somewhat terrifying topic, given how evil-geniuses will likely end up using it. I explored it some length yesterday, for those of you want to get up to speed on, this latest Billionaire-pasttime that has already been stacked against us:
The Cambridge Analytica Psyops -- that made both Trump and Brexit "Winners"
But the intent of this post today was to draw attention to the Koch Brothers heir apparent Robert Mercer. I am reminded of a quote from the Sherlock Holmes remake, towards the end of the film, when Holmes’ love-interest Irene, solemnly warns him:
Watch out for Professor Moriarty — he’s just as smart as you. And twice as devious.
Unfortunately, I fear, the same words could be spoken about Robert Mercer, in all seriousness. We may be in for a long bumpy social-engineering ride, if nothing steps up to curb his automation “success” ...