Sheldon Adelson’s Bad Bet When Trump Loses

 

Sheldon Adelson, age 87, is a professional gambler, or at least he has made billions from gambling.  It’s a business where the money is loose, and more people are always coming through the doors to play the odds. 

This may explain Adelson’s attraction to placing money on political candidates he thinks can win. If they don’t….well, it won’t affect his net worth anyway.

Adelson is the most significant contributor to Trump and a big contributor to Republicans.  Adelson is considered one of the greatest offenders in American politics because he uses his money to advance his agenda. He is a long-time Republican supporter and a close friend of Newt Gingrich, a disruptive and underhanded politician who championed shutting down the federal government.

Worse, the money scandal in politics is so widespread that it has contaminated this democracy.

It doesn’t matter if Trump is a tax cheat and adulterer.  Adelson still finds him and his right-wing policies attractive enough to write him hundreds of millions in checks.

Money for Nothing? 

As for Trump’s connections to white supremacists and other fringe groups who are anti-Semitic, well, that doesn’t seem to matter.  Sheldon keeps writing checks anyway.

Here is how much Adelson has spent on Trump and Republican candidates and their elitist agendas, according to some excellent reporting in The Guardian:

• $250 million to back Trump, Republican Senate and House members, and conservative causes;
• $50 million to a Super Pac, the Senate Leadership Fund, friends of Mitch McConnell run that. So far, this PAC has raised over$308 million to keep the Senate in Republican hands;
• Adelson is a huge contributor to the Republican Jewish Coalition that has spent a record $10 million, some of it on inane TV ads to support Trump;
• $40 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC that backs House GOP candidates.

All this tallies up to over $340 million from Adelson to prop up the right-wing Republican Party of 2020.

To many political experts, the Republican Party of 2020 has many of the ultra-right John Birch Society political beliefs, including critical elements of its platform that are anti-government, QAnon-like conspiratorial, and anti-Semitic.  But apparently, none of this bothers Adelson.

Is Sheldon a Bad Bettor?

But the big question is: How clever of a gambler is Adelson?

What does he get if Trump loses?

The political donor who contributes to losing candidates loses political access.

It’s doubtful any Democrat would have anything to do with Adelson and the policies he supports, especially his personal estate tax benefits due to carried interest loopholes and corporate tax breaks.

With that, Adelson can focus on a few of his charitable donations that benefit people, not the special interests he has focused on in the past.