Billionaire businessman and tech pioneer Peter Thiel's outré political support of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and secret third-party funding of a lawsuit to bankrupt Gawker Media might lead one to believe him to be no a fan of a free press. Wrong! Thiel in fact spoke today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and video of that is below.
In his talk, Thiel mounted rhetorical attacks on globalism, the indebtedness of many millennials, and the foreign wars currently waged by the US. How does Trump fit into all of this? Speaking to the New York Times on Friday in anticipation of the National Press Club engagement today, Thiel said that “The millions of people who vote for Trump are not doing it because of the worst things he said or did... That’s ridiculous. The Americans who are voting for Trump are doing it because they judge the situation of the country to be urgent. We’re at such a crucial point that you have to overlook personal characteristics.”
Taken to task with extensive questions, Thiel was asked to explain his attack on Gawker and support for Trump, positions on which he equivocated widely. Thiel excused Trump by arguing that the media always took him literally, rather than, I suppose, metaphorically. Thiel also said the timing of a donation to Trump that was merely coincident with the release of audio in which Trump brags about sexual assault. “Nobody thinks his comments about women were acceptable," Thiel said. "They were clearly offensive and inappropriate.
Peter Thiel, verbatim: "If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system."
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 31, 2016
Thiel has been criticized by a largely liberal Silicon Valley elite for his Trump support, vocal and financial, but so far his stakes and positions, such as a role on Facebook's board (he was the first outside investor in the company) have remained safe. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has justified Thiel's support of Trump by stating that "We care deeply about diversity," and implying that Thiel's views are a form thereof. For his part, Thiel is the author of The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus, a volume that criticizes the idea of diversity per se and somehow also finds time to characterize rape as "belated regret" according to a summary in the Guardian.
Previously: Peter Thiel To Speak Publicly About His Trump Support As Silicon Valley Battle Lines Harden
