A rookie congressional candidate in a nine-way Texas primary has received the imprimatur of wealthy hard-right donors including tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Claremont Institute board chair Thomas Klingenstein and Charles Haywood, who once expressed a desire to be a “warlord”, according to new Federal Election Commission filings showing early donations to his campaign.
In a recent candidate forum, Jace Yarbrough unapologetically staked out a series of extremist positions, saying that critics may call his approach to politics “bigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish”, but that he is “past trying to placate that in any way, shape or form”.
Following the flood of donations in December, Yarbrough was endorsed by Donald Trump on Truth Social.
Yarbrough’s remaining donors include others with ties to the Claremont Institute and the secretive far-right Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including Nate Fischer, a venture capitalist with documented links to JD Vance; and Andrew Beck, Claremont’s vice-president for communications and an admitted SACR member.
Current and former employees of Beck-founded agency Beck & Stone are also among the donors.
John Bellamy Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, said:“Jace Yarbrough is among the most militant figures in the Maga political movement in the United States, and a major recipient of Maga-billionaire donations in his run for a congressional seat in North Texas.”
Foster added: “If it can be said that there is a neofascist political movement in the United States, Yarbrough is certainly one of its chief would-be ‘lawgivers’.”
The Guardian contacted Yarbrough and all donors named in this reporting. Only Klingenstein replied, writing in an email: “I have no particular objections to or comments on the
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