There’s always a certain amount of suspicion that’s generated when people hear of “secret meetings” attended by powerful people. And a bit of skepticism isn’t a bad thing. After all, it could just be a ruse to dupe people into thinking that something significant is going on when the reality is nothing of the sort.
On the other hand, there are interests with enormous financial and political power, and it would be absurd to conclude that they are going to do their business in public view. For the most part, these people and organizations prefer to operate under the radar. Hence it would be appropriate to conclude that far more of these sorts of meetings and machinations occur than the public will ever know about.
In March of 2016, an intriguing gathering was held at Jekyll Island, sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. What was discussed might surprise you.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held its World Forum on March 3-6. It was supposed to be a panel that discussed topics ranging from “Millennials: How Much Do They Matter and What Do They Want?” and “The State of Work: Jobs, Wages, and Mobility.”
Sounds respectable enough. But then we dig a bit deeper.
But it reportedly turned into a close-to-the-chest strategy session for politicians and the tech titans of Silicon Valley on how to stop Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
The list of attendees included the heads of the usual tech firms as well as top political leaders from Washington including some powerful Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan. What is especially intriguing, is what Mr. Karl Rove reportedly had to say to the group:
But according to HuffPost Politics, it was Republican political consultant Karl Rove who used his presentation time to create a battle cry against Donald J. Trump…
HuffPost Politics alleges that Rove discussed focus group findings on Trump. He reviewed Trump’s greatest weaknesses and stated that voters have a hard time envisioning Trump as president.
With the benefit of now reviewing this event after the election, it’s clear that the voters didn’t have as much trouble envisioning Trump as president as Mr. Rove thought. Anyway, Rush Limbaugh had some remarks of his own to make.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh weighed in on this Rove hearsay with strong anti-establishment sentiment:
“It was a circle, and they were sitting around the circle, and they were all telling each other or asking each other, ‘How the hell did this happen?’ And it’s an understandable thing. They think they run the world. They think they control these things. And out of the blue comes the Trumpster. You got all these tech CEOs and all these left-wing inventors and tech people with these Republicans? That’s crony capitalism right in front of your face, or crony socialism.”
While Rove later denied much of the story, the pieces do fit, don’t they? In the months following this meeting we witnessed a concerted effort by Republican leaders to derail Trump’s campaign — evening going to the point of refusing to endorse him after he won the Republican nomination.
Whatever happened at Jekyll Island this March — whether it was a straightforward informational session or a nefarious plot to alter the 2016 presidential race — the 99% will likely never find out.
In one sense, what Mr. Rove and these people talked about at their meeting really doesn’t matter. After all, Mr. Trump is about to be inaugurated as president. On the other hand, if these powerful interests really were working to sabotage Mr. Trump’s campaign, it’s sort of nice to see how badly they failed. Chalk up a win for average guy.
Source: Money Morning
