Whenever a racist (Donald Trump, Hulk Hogan) needs assistance, Peter Thiel is quick to cut a large check. 

According to a New York Times report, the bloodthirsty Silicon Valley big deal just infused the odious Trump campaign with $1.25 million. In David Streitfeld’s article, a confidante reveals the reason for the gay immigrant’s support of a bigot: “The investor feels the country needs fixing, and Mr. Trump can do it.” Yes, an irrational ignoramus with the depth of an off-color bumper sticker is the one to cure what ails us, even though his stated economic and immigration policies would clearly be ruinous.

At the convention, Thiel revealed he was troubled that the nation was fixated on cultural issues like the homophobic “bathroom laws” in places like North Carolina. He failed to mention it was members of his own party who manufactured the controversy by proposing, and sometimes passing, prejudiced legislation aimed at rebuking the national legalization of gay marriage. 

As I’ve mentioned before, being a billionaire in America doesn’t mean you’re especially decent or particularly intelligent.

Another deep-pocketed Trump donor is wealthy hedge-fund manager Robert Mercer, who’s no stranger to handing over large sums of money for crackpot ideas, though none so far have had so much potential for devastation as helping the hideous hotelier into the White House. 

From Jon Schwarz at the Intercept:

So why does Mercer feel such allegiance to Trump? Is it Trump’s policies, élan, and extraordinary judgement and poise?

Maybe. But based on Mercer’s past, it’s more likely that it’s that Mercer is an incredibly easy mark. He has a long history of falling for cranks and grifters, and Trump is just the largest.

Mercer is a relative newcomer to big-time Republican politics, but not to writing big checks to people with exciting proposals to change the world.

For instance, in 2005 Mercer’s family foundation sent $60,000 to Art Robinson, an Oregon chemist, so Robinson could expand his huge collection of human urine. Robinson, who believes that a close analysis of urine can “improve our health, our happiness and prosperity, and even the academic performance of our children in school,” has now received a total of $1.4 million from the Mercer foundation. He’s used this to buy urine freezers and mail postcards to puzzled Oregonians asking them to send him their urine, among other things.

Robinson, who also feels public education is America’s “most widespread and devastating form of child abuse and racism,” ran for Congress in 2010 against Democrat Peter DeFazio. Mercer, smitten with Robinson’s vision of low taxes and large-scale urine collection, co-funded a Super PAC that spent $600,000 on ads supporting him.

Mercer also funds the peculiar organization Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, to which Robinson belongs. The group’s other members hold varied beliefs, such as that low doses of radiation are good for you, that HIV does not cause AIDS, and that the U.S. government did not stop the San Bernardino terrorist attacks because it’s “on the other side.”•