Joe Ricketts is the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs. He spent millions running ads denigrating Donald Trump. Now he’s backing Donald Trump. Joe Ricketts is a bad person who should be castigated and disrespected by civil society.
You see the ad above? This ad was produced by the Our Principles PAC, a group which received millions of dollars in funding from Joe Ricketts and Marlene Ricketts, his wife. The stated goal of this PAC was to “prevent Donald Trump from hijacking our great party.” To that end, they produced multiple ads, such as the one above that points out Donald Trump’s gross misogyny, and this one, which portrays Trump as untrustworthy:
And now? The Wall Street Journal reports that “in a stunning turnaround, Mr. Ricketts has now decided to endorse Mr. Trump, and plans to donate at least $1 million to help him win the presidency in November.” The reason, according to Ricketts’ political adviser: “The Ricketts decided they could not sit back and watch Hillary Clinton become the next president of the United States.”
Joe Ricketts believes that Donald Trump is a dangerous, untrustworthy misogynist. But still—better than a woman becoming president.
Republicans like Joe Ricketts will fall in line with Donald Trump because Republicans like Joe Ricketts ultimately care about their own tax rates more than they care about misogyny, xenophobia, racism, blatant hostility towards the U.S. Bill of Rights, or any other threat to this country.
If the Cubs weren’t cursed before, they are now.