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AZ-Sen: Even Blake Masters' (R) Own Best Man From His Wedding Thinks He Would Be A Horrible Senator [1]
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Date: 2022-07-18
Here’s the latest out of Arizona:
“Shame on you,” Wedel replied from his private account. “I’m so utterly disappointed in what you’ve done with yourself. People will get sick, and die, because of your reckless rhetoric. As someone who loves and used to respect you: What happened to you?”
Among the interviewees was the best man at Masters’ wedding, Collin Wedel, now a partner at a corporate law firm in California. Wedel said he was alerted by his brothers to tweets from Masters account last year, and he replied to one in November that called coronavirus vaccine mandates evil.
The front-runner in Arizona’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate was slammed as a snake oil salesman by an old friend who was the best man at his wedding.
Mother Jones profiles how much of a puppet Masters is for Peter Thiel:
Years ago, the two men’s focus on electoral politics would have seemed unlikely. Earlier in his career, Thiel wrote about creating floating colonies in the ocean, while Masters told people not to vote. Since then, both have had changes of heart about means, not ends. Instead of escaping state control, Masters and Thiel now hope to use its power to solidify the dominance of the founder class and end the technological stagnation they believe could lead to humanity’s extinction. To do so, they are willing to move fast and break things. But instead of disrupting taxi companies or hotels, American democracy is in their sights. A decade after his startup lectures, there should no longer be any doubt that Thiel’s sympathy for authoritarianism extends well beyond the private sector.
So he’s spending big to bend the American right to his will. He has also put at least $15 million behind Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance—another former employee, best known for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy—and helped arrange the Trump endorsement that secured Vance’s primary victory. In total, Thiel is supporting more than a dozen Republican candidates, most of whom have disputed the results of the 2020 election. And while he may soon have three senators whose rise he has helped fund—Vance, Masters, and Sen. Josh Hawley, another right-wing Stanford grad—it is Masters who would allow Thiel to effectively have a seat of his own.
Beginning in March, I sent repeated interview requests to Masters, who never replied. Last week, I sent him an extensive list of 24 fact-checking questions, which he also ignored. Thiel also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Arizona voters who want to comprehend just how unusual Masters is must understand the full pantheon of his influences. They include Curtis Yarvin, who describes himself as America’s foremost absolute monarchist blogger; Murray Rothbard, the reactionary economist who suggested libertarians use right-wing populism to push their agenda; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, whom Masters has praised (with caveats). Another favorite is Lee Kuan Yew, the late dictator of Singapore who oversaw a miraculous economic transformation while crushing the civil liberties of those who stood in the way.
But no one is as influential as Thiel, who confessed in a 2009 essay, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” He went on to warn that the “fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.”
Thiel is setting himself up to be that builder. Masters is one of his tools.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/18/2111186/-AZ-Sen-Even-Blake-Masters-R-Own-Best-Man-From-His-Wedding-Thinks-He-Would-Be-A-Horrible-Senator
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