I am glad we’re finally learned something about the puppeteers behind Bannon, Conway, Breitbart and ultimately, Trump — the Mercers.

Charles Pierce writes about them today in the context of details emerging from a lawsuit against Robert Mercer who is being sued by a former partner in one of his companies, Renaissance Technologies, one David Magerman. Pierce excerpts some details from a Vanity Fair story which I think we should all read — meanwhile,

In court papers filed on Friday, Magerman argues that following a pair of phone conversations in which Mercer expressed arguably racist opinions, Magerman felt obliged to inform the press about his boss’s viewpoints—and that he received verbal assurance by Renaissance C.O.O. Mark Silber that the statements he intended to make were “permissible under company policy.” Those racist opinions, according to Magerman, included comments such as: a) The United States began to go in the wrong direction after the passage of the Civl Rights Act in the 1960s; b) African Americans were doing fine in the late-1950s and early-1960s before the Civil Rights Act; c) The Civil Rights Act “infantilized” African Americas by making them dependent on government and removing any incentive to work;d) The only racist people remaining in the United States are black; and e) White people have no racial animus toward African Americans anymore, and if there is any, is it not something that the government should be concerned with.

The best part of the filing, at least to us, was that when Magerman “point[ed] out that society was segregated before the Civil Rights Act and African Americans were required to use separate and inferior schools, water fountains, and other everyday services and items,” Mercer allegedly responded that “those issues were not important.” In a subsequent phone conversation (the “white supremacist” one), Magerman claimed Mercer initially “disputed that he had said such things, although he did not actually deny saying them” and “in the course of rehashing the conversation . . . repeated many of these same views, and even cited research that allegedly supported his opinion that the Civil Rights Act harmed African Americans economically.” (A spokesman for Renaissance declined to comment.)

This would have been beyond the pale for respectable people in the 1960’s — although sadly there were and are plenty who felt that way — in private — but today it’s stunning that anybody could even think like that!

And, the re-emergence of Nazis and the Klan is simply horrifying, I believe, to most Americans though it’s clearly found resonance with a surprisingly large number of our citizens who willingly voted for an overt bigot.

Regardless these comments reflect that mindset on Mercer’s part that explains Bannon, Breitbart, the careful nurturing of racists and bomb-throwers like Milo; and why the Mercers backed Trump, who appears more and more like an actual Nazi-wanna be and less like the usual Republican who dog-whistles for votes — the latter is reprehensible no doubt but we’ve gone from that to torch carrying mobs which is a terrible and frightening apparition and has the potential to completely destabilize the country, and Europe, and probably parts of South America as well.

I’m wondering how the Mercers fit into the disturbing pattern of far right wing movements in Europe as well as here, which are tragically gaining momentum and political power even in Germany. Election results from Austria last night were not reassuring, with a young white nationalist gaining about 25% of the vote — movements long thought dead and disgraced are surging back to life. Cambridge Analytica did play a large role in the Brexit — what about them personally?

And what about the overlap between Russian meddling in Europe and here, the international white supremacist movement backed by Russia that has emerged and gained traction in Britain and many European nations — and Mercer, Bannon, Conway, Trump? It looks to me like anything but an accident.

www.esquire.com/...