If you've got billions of dollars and want to get rid of Donald Trump and all of the Republicans who enable him, seems like the best plan would be to plow all that money into Democratic infrastructure, working to take back state and local governments and the Senate. Or you could run a vanity campaign to stoke your own ego. Tom Steyer, who has been hinting at a run, has made his decision.
He's in officially, but at least running as a Democrat rather than as an independent. That means he won't be a spoiler splitting the anti-Trump vote in 2020. In a statement to go along with his announcement video, Steyer says that all the Democratic contenders "have many great ideas that will absolutely move our country forward, but we won't be able to get any of those done until we end the hostile corporate takeover of our democracy." And the guy to do that is a hedge fund billionaire? He continued, "As an outsider, I've led grassroots efforts that have taken on big corporations and won results for people. That's not something you see a lot of from Washington these days. That's why I'm running for president."
There's an echo of Trump's 2016 campaign in Steyer's claim that since he's personally loaded, he won't be corruptible. We've seen how that's turned out, so it's not a theme he should push hard in this primary. To be absolutely fair to Steyer, he and his wife, Kat Taylor, have been the largest political donors to Democrats, with a $238 million investment in political campaigns and organizations. That would potentially be a more fruitful path for him to continue down, but what the hell. The more the merrier, right?