"Wealthy Republicans were first to form a daisy chain of nonprofit giving to funnel anonymous money into the political system."

"But recently, this path has been exploited to a far greater degree by wealthy Democrats, many of whom are seeking anonymity to avoid reprisals from President Trump, even as they donate tens of millions of dollars at a time to defeat Republican candidates. In the 2024 election cycle, over 40 percent of the nearly $2 billion raised by the largest Democratic super PACs came from entities that did not disclose their donors, according to the Times analysis. That was twice the rate of the largest Republican super PACs that cycle. Alexandra Acker-Lyons, an adviser to several prominent progressive donors, said that liberals had to use everything in the campaign finance arsenal to fight Mr. Trump. 'When we get power, we can change all of the rules so that everyone plays nice,' Ms. Acker-Lyons said. 'But until we have power, we can’t do that.'"

From "Wealthy Donors Are Hiding Political Money in Secretive Nonprofits/Using philanthropy for campaign donations is illegal. But an exception for some nonprofits has allowed Democratic billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg to remain anonymous when they want to play politics" (NYT)(gift link).