How Blake Masters became Arizona's GOP Senate frontrunner

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     July 20, 2022 Hi, I'm Noah Lanard, a reporter here at Mother Jones. Back in March, I started looking into a US Senate candidate named Blake Masters. Not much had been written about him, he'd never run for office, and he was nearly 20 points behind in the polls. But I would have bet then that he was going to win the Arizona Republican primary on August 2. Masters' break had come from posting the notes he took during a class that Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, taught at Stanford in 2012. The notes on his Tumblr went viral, and Masters eventually ended up as Thiel's chief of staff. Thiel—Donald Trump's biggest Silicon Valley backer in 2016—got his now 35-year-old protégé started in the race with a $10 million super-PAC donation. A Trump endorsement and the frontrunner status that would come with it felt like an inevitability. After I began talking to Masters' childhood and college friends, I learned that they'd known him as a hardcore libertarian who believed in open borders and access to abortion. Now, he was running as an America First ally of Tucker Carlson. Instead of defending a woman's right to have an abortion, he declared, "There's a genocide happening in America." Many of his old friends were disgusted. "I don't know what's worse," the best man at his wedding told me, "if he actually is aware that he's selling snake oil to people, or if he truly believes" what he's saying. Another once-close friend said, "It makes me ache when I see what he writes and says. It puts me in a state of depression." The full story became even stranger as I read Masters' influences. They included Curtis Yarvin, who describes himself as America's foremost absolute monarchist blogger; Murray Rothbard, the reactionary economist who suggested libertarians use right-wing populism to push their agenda; and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, whom Masters has praised (with caveats). But the most important influence was Thiel, who declared long ago that he no longer believed freedom and democracy were compatible. Masters' and Thiel's story is one of right-wing libertarians moving beyond trying to escape the state to seeking to control it. If democracy is disrupted along the way, that is a price they appear willing to pay. In less than two weeks, Masters is likely to be the Republican nominee in Arizona thanks to the endorsement Trump provided last month. He would face Mark Kelly, the former astronaut and husband of former Congress member Gabby Giffords, in what is expected to be one of the closest Senate races this year. It will be hard for Arizona voters to comprehend just how unusual the man asking for their vote really is. Even one of Masters' own major donors didn't realize what he was supporting. "This is the first time where I will regularly wake up and feel just a sense of dread about who it is that I have backed," he said. Check out my [full profile of Masters here](. —Noah Lanard Advertisement [WW Norton]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Relatives of Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake Went to Ohio to Protest. Then the Cops Came After Them.]( One ended up in jail. Another in the hospital. Here, they share what happened. BY SAMANTHA MICHAELS [Trending] [Despite pleas from 9/11 families, Trump urges pros to join Saudi-backed golf league]( BY RUSS CHOMA   ["Women are going to die": A late abortion doctor on the dangers of post-Roe America]( BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG   [Searing summer heat is driving food prices higher still]( BY KATE YODER   [AOC among 16 lawmakers arrested protesting the end of Roe]( BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG Advertisement [WW Norton]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [Blake Masters Is Peter Thiel’s Dream Candidate—and a Total Nightmare for Democracy]( The right-wing tech giant, who has said he believes freedom and democracy are incompatible, has poured millions into his protégé’s Senate campaign. BY NOAH LANARD [Fiercely Independent] Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. [Donate]( Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755