Robert Mercer's Departure Won't Change Anything

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

06 November 17

The prion disease has progressed too far.

wish I felt as schadenfreude-ish about Robert Mercer’s announcement of his separation from Breitbart’s Mausoleum For The Otherwise Unemployable as some other people do. Yes, there is some satisfaction to be derived from the knowledge that his association with that journalistic Superfund site was so hurting his real business that he’s stepping down as CEO of his hedge fund. But, frankly, this is not going to do anything to keep Breitbart from leaching poison into the political water table.

First of all, things have gone too far for any one development to stop it now. (I mean, sweet baby Jeebus, Roy Moore is going to be in the U.S. Senate and Roy Moore is utterly bananas. The prion disease is well-past the chronic stage and Breitbart is an obvious carrier.) Second, Mercer is handing the operation over to his daughter, Rebekah, and, as those of you lucky enough to have read Joshua Green’s Devil’s Bargain know, Rebekah Mercer is the real loon in the Mercer family flock.

One of the amusing aspects of Robert Mercer’s letter announcing all this was the revelation that he, too, was one of those people who voted for the Leopards Who Will Eat Your Face party without closely reading that party’s platform.

"I supported Milo Yiannopoulos in the hope and expectation that his expression of views contrary to the social mainstream and his spotlighting of the hypocrisy of those who would close down free speech in the name of political correctness would promote the type of open debate and freedom of thought that is being throttled on many American college campuses today. But in my opinion, actions of and statements by Mr. Yiannopoulos have caused pain and divisiveness undermining the open and productive discourse that I had hoped to facilitate. I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him."

Translation: The soulless provocateur and carny barker whom I helped bankroll became so toxic and awful that all the Muffys and Treys and their paters and maters at the club started wearing garlic and carrying crucifixes whenever I came around.

But, as we said, Rebekah is no bargain herself—Devil’s or otherwise. Nothing will change.