In the most recent election, the 2014 midterm, a local San Franciscan named Tom Styer put nearly $60 million of his own money into supporting environmental candidates.
I don't know who he actually supported. Nearly all environmentalists in the United States are lefty fundamentalists Democrats. It is a political religion for them, after all.
What I do know is that the Democrats lost miserably. Everywhere, at every level. Enviro-Democrats probably lost more seats at every state and federal level than they had ever lost before in American politics.
This election was not a wave election, it was a tsunami election. I don't think a single penny of Tom Styer's money had any positive effect.
The environmental movement did not benefit from his $60 million. One could argue that without his money they would have done worse. I'm sure many Democrats told him that. But he couldn't have had a bigger loss. 100% loss is the upper limit.
It is heartwarming to me to know that so much money funding the environmental movement was completely wasted. The movement long ago became an armageddon driven religion.
This waste of money is not unusual since nearly all money poured into political campaigns by naïve people is wasted. See the last blog of November.
What is most heartwarming for me is to see that people who believe in simplistic memes ('money is important to elections') are punished by the political system for their naïveté. You do not learn about politics by donating money.