Peter Thiel can't intellectualize his way out of this: Only an asshole would support Donald Trump

When Ted Cruz -- satanic candidate of choice for Silicon Valley libertarians -- dropped out of the presidential race last week, I wondered: Who will Big Asshole back next?

Last night we got our answer: Donald Fucking Trump.

According to the Guardian, Peter Thiel, king of Valley libertarians (and a Pando investor through Founders Fund), is not just supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy but he is actually listed as a delegate for Trump in California.

With Trump facing no active opposition as the presumptive Republican nominee, Thiel is a near certainty to be elected in the state’s 7 June primary... Thiel does share certain ideological beliefs with Trump. The Silicon Valley billionaire is very hawkish on immigration and in 2008 reportedly made a $1m donation to Numbers USA, a group that advocates for reduced immigration to the United States. Numbers USA has praised Trump’s immigration plan and given the presumptive nominee an A-rating.

This from a guy who once called Uber “the most morally bankrupt company in Silicon Valley.” This from a guy who made billions of dollars through founding Paypal -- a company co-founded by an immigrant (Max Levchin), backed by an immigrant (Mike Moritz) and sold to a company founded by an immigrant (Pierre Omidyar).

Oh, and also a guy who just a few months ago described Trump as “sort of symptomatic of everything that is wrong with New York City.”

Vanity Fair explains the process by which Thiel's name made it on to the ballot:

[Thiel] is listed as one of three representatives from California’s 12th congressional district. State election law dictates that delegates are selected by the candidates themselves, not the party, and the Trump campaign has been vetting potential delegates for several weeks.

Thiel has so far declined to comment on his decision to back Trump but, based on past performance, you can bet he and his Paypal mafia cronies will try to dress the decision in cod intellectual claptrap about individual choice and liberty. That’s what happened when fellow Paypal mafioso Scott Banister declared his support for homophobic, anti-choice, anti-immigrant, anti-everything candidate Ted Cruz, and that’s what happened all the way back when Keith Rabois and his friends decided to scream homophobic insults at a Stanford lecturer: “Faggot! Hope you die of AIDS!" and "Can't wait until you die, faggot," they yelled, according to the official record.

The third participant - first-year law student Keith Rabois - refused to answer their questions, but sent a letter to the Stanford Daily confirming the allegations. "Admittedly, the comments made were not very articulate, not very intellectual nor profound," Rabois wrote. "The intention was for the speech to be outrageous enough to provoke a thought of 'Wow, if he can say that, I guess I can say a little more than I thought.' "

Or perhaps just “wow, what an asshole!” Even Rabois, though, has called Trump an “opportunistic liar.”

Unfortunately, there is literally no way for Thiel to intellectualize his way out of this one.

He is providing an intellectual figleaf to one of the most avowedly anti-intellectual and unqualified presidential nominees of all time.

As I've written elsewhere, Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims, and most other immigrants, from entering the United States and talks about women as if they're his personal sex toys. He wants to cut America off from the world and sees no reason to rule out dropping a nuclear bomb on Europe. Oh, and his own ex-wife has accused him of rape.

These are not the policies of a libertarian, or even of a creationist (which Thiel also claims to be). These are the policies of a fucking asshole.

I can’t speak for anyone else here at Pando, but I’m utterly ashamed that we have him as an investor.