Mimicking Donald Trump, far-right lawmakers use personal celebrity to draw in donors

Deborah Castleman was a life-long Democrat. But in 2016, the 68-year-old retired engineer from California decided she wanted to vote for a candidate who would leave the latest international treaty on climate change.  

Castleman, who worked on former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and in his administration, said Donald Trump was her last choice for president, but she was won over by his willingness to leave the Paris Agreement. Then she heard him speak and he awakened a sense of patriotism in her, she explained to Paste BN. 

She never went back.  

Now, Castleman gives to some of the most ultra-conservative members of Congress, all ardent Trump followers who have picked up his America First mantle: Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, and Paul Gosar of Arizona. She gave them nearly $4,000 total in 2021. 

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She and six other donors who spoke to Paste BN are among the thousands of individual contributors who are giving to the farthest-right members of Congress as they seek reelection. Inspired by their brash positions and the backlash they draw, the donors are helping these lawmakers amass campaign fortunes with little to no help from corporate political action committees, extending the right-wing populist movement Trump started.  

Success in campaign fundraising is no longer the result of support from political parties or political action committees, experts told Paste BN. Now, the nation’s media and campaign finance ecosystem encourages candidates to make outrageous statements that boost their media presence, exposing their views to potential donors and repeating the cycle, just like Trump did.   

“Some of them have achieved celebrity status by their antics,” said Ray La Raja a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and also the author of “Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail.” “I mean, they're like Trump. They really understand how to get media attention and getting media attention is the name of the game, not governing.”  

The discipline so many of these politicians have faced – like when House Democrats stopped Greene and Gosar from serving on committees – and the backlash they’ve received over intolerant comments hasn’t ended Castleman’s support. If anything, it’s been motivating. 

“If they get attacked, unfairly, that’s when I usually contribute,” Castleman said, “just to show that, ‘Hey, even if you’re getting attacked, there’s people out here that support what you’re doing.’” 

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Bringing in big dollars through individual donors

While most candidates for office get the majority of their money from individual donors, the ones who support Trump’s nationalist economic and foreign policies – dubbed America First – stand out. They’re raising significantly more than the average House candidate.

Greene, Gaetz, Boebert, Cawthorn and Gosar all raised more than double the median ($108,333) House candidates raised in 2021. Greene led the way with a whopping $7.2 million followed by Gaetz ($4.2 million), Boebert ($3.2 million), Cawthorn ($2.6 million) and Gosar ($343,000). 

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Greene, Gosar, Boebert and Cawthorn all received roughly 99% of their contributions in 2021 from individual donors, higher than the median House candidate at around 95%. Gosar, who has been in the House for more than a decade, received about 96% of his money from individual donors. The group's average proportion of support from people giving less than $200 was higher than the House's six most-progressive members: 58% versus 49%.

Greene, specifically, received 76% of her fundraising haul from small donors. That’s slightly higher support from small donors than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who raised $7.8 million in 2021, with 74% of it coming from small donors.   

“This is the I guess, the dark side of small donors,” La Raja said. “They can really fuel the candidacies of extremists. I mean, Donald Trump was the biggest small donor recipient of all. He outraised Bernie Sanders with small donors.”  

PACs are tools that companies, trade associations, and unions create to pool money from individual donors who share their interests, and help candidates raise far more than they would from individuals alone. Candidates like to boast about not taking money from PACs as a sign that they are independent from other influences.  

These right-wing lawmakers are no different. In May, at a rally in the Villages, Florida, Gaetz said he and Greene don’t take corporate PAC money.  

“As a matter of fact, I think the $5 that somebody donates to us means more to us,” Greene said.  

Some of these candidates simply may not be able to raise money from PACs, because they are so new to Congress and don’t hold a lot of sway over bills that affect the PACs’ interests, said Richard Briffault, a professor of legislation at Columbia Law School.   

Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University, said it differently.

"National attention and press coverage tend to attract a lot of individual donations nationwide,” he said. “The people who are the most PAC heavy in their donations tend to be long-serving incumbents, people who chair important committees."  

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The America First candidates are no stranger to drawing attention. They're constantly making headlines and cable news for controversial behavior and statements, which often results in condemnation from Democrats and some within their own party. 

Greene lost her committee assignments 15 days after her swearing in when lawmakers punished her for a litany of incendiary and conspiratorial social media posts. She and Boebert both have referred to liberal congresswomen of color, including Muslims, with the moniker “Jihad Squad.”   

Gaetz faces a sex trafficking investigation, and his ex-girlfriend testified in a Department of Justice probe. Some of Cawthorn's constituents say he should not be able to be in Congress because of his involvement in the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection.

Gosar has forged ties with white nationalists and the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers. In November, House Democrats censured him and stopped him from serving on committees for posting a violent anime video that depicted the killing of Ocasio-Cortez.

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Donors call these politicians brutally honest 

The donors who talked with Paste BN live outside the districts represented by these far-right lawmakers, but they hear their messages onright-wing media and appreciate what they call their brutal honesty, contrasting them with Democrats, who they dismiss as elites. The donors were all educated and had careers, like Castleman, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon under former President Bill Clinton’s administration.  

Castleman, whose favorite lawmaker is Greene, described herself as a feminist, but said there has been a shift in the movement from teaching empowerment to teaching victimhood. She said she likes to support women and see them succeed.  

“I love people who fight for the things that I think are important,” Castleman said. On Greene: “She's fearless. I really admire people who aren’t in Washington to gather power or something like that, who are really trying to get something done." 

Marc Goldman, 74, gave $2,900 each to Greene, Gaetz, Boebert and Cawthorn. He said he supports their stances on national security issues and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past two years, the government created “unnecessary fear-mongering" based on protecting public health, he said.  

“They were more willing to be open and straightforward and no pretense,” Goldman said of the candidates he supports. He didn’t call their comments offensive, but the opposite of politically correct. “Sometimes to get attention, you have to be a little more out there," he said.     

Theodore Keller, 90, a retired political scientist from California, said he believes Democrats suppress free speech by focusing on political correctness. He said he supports the lawmakers for their anti-globalist positions.    

Keller donated more than $1,000 to Greene, Gaetz, and Boebert. He also gave to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and several GOP PACs in 2021.     

He describes himself as a lifelong atheist, in contrast to the Christian conservatism many of these lawmakers share.    

“We have many differences. I see them as naïve about where we’re at,” he said. “But their naivete is nothing I can do anything about. When they take a position I agree with, I support them, as I did with Trump.”   

Juanita Mason, a retiree from Maryland, gave hundreds of repeating donations in 2021, giving hundreds of dollars each to Greene, Gaetz, Boebert and Cawthorn. She said she donated because of their truthfulness and honesty.   

“I’ve always been a Republican and I want to stay that way because I’m more impressed with the Republicans than I am the Democrats,” Mason said.   

Both she and Marcia Barnett, a donor from Texas, said they gave to candidates after seeing them on Fox News.   

Retired schoolteacher Kathy Perrizo from California said she hears about these lawmakers from Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Stew Peters on Red Voice Media, the One America News Network and through YouTube videos.    

She donated more than $10,000 in 2021, including $1,545 to Greene, $851 to Gaetz, and $495 to Boebert. She also gave to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Rep. Jake Elizey, R-Texas; anti-abortion groups and organizations that defend persecuted Christians.    

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Castleman said she supports America First lawmakers because they do not want the United States to be overly dependent on other countries.  

“There’s this kind of globalist mindset where, ‘Hey, I’m going to hang out with all these global elites,’ and I don’t really care about keeping America great,” she said. 

Lawrence Rosenthal, chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, said populism is about resentment toward perceived elites, and the difference between left-wing and right-wing populism is the object of their resentment.  

“For left-wing populism, it tends to be financial elites,” Rosenthal said. “For right-wing populism, it tends to be cultural elites.” 

Walter Claiborne, a Louisianan who gave to Greene, Gaetz and Boebert, directed his ire at top Democrats in Congress: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 

"They're all a bunch of elites,” he said."I have no respect, no regard for those people whatsoever.”

These far-right candidates are playing to a crowd that harbors all kinds of opinions about other groups of people, according to Joan Donovan, a research director at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center. She said right-wing supporters are often apprehensive to share their views because they assume they are alone in their thinking. 

“When you hear a politician, someone in power, take that risk, that resonates differently,” Donovan said. “That hits you differently. That makes you think, ‘This person can represent me.’” 

Castleman builds her own following   

Castleman, the former Democrat, now spends her days producing lengthy videos on the Canadian-based online video platform Rumble to share her political views. She used to publish on YouTube before the platform took down her content for medical misinformation. 

She questions the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine, criticizes mask wearing, denounces globalism and speaks about what she considers election fraud.    

“The main thing I try to do on my little Rumble channel is encourage people,” she said, “because a lot of people are just like, ‘What is happening to our country?’”   

She’s stopped reading the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times newspapers. She loves the podcast “War Room” by former Trump aide Steve Bannon. She won’t watch the conservative cable outlet Fox News, except for "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and Laura Ingraham's "The Ingraham Angle." 

On the outside of the Santa Monica, California, house where she works on her videos, Castleman has placed a new addition: An American flag.   

“There’s only two flags in the whole neighborhood, but I love it,” she said. “I love this country.”