Given the truly astronomical dry powder at their disposal, and the recitations every two years that this election is the most important of our lifetimes, I’m often surprised that America’s stratospheric mega-donor class doesn’t spend more of their wealth on political campaigns. Sure, the elites of Silicon Valley, New York, and L.A. can help bundle millions for their candidates and steer their networks to their preferred causes, but we don’t see the titans of capitalism spending hundreds of millions, let alone a few billion, on each election cycle, even when you include undisclosed dark money. I get it: the return on investment is iffy. But even here in Silicon Valley, home to so many frazzled liberal billionaires determined to suffocate the existential threat of Trumpism, the checks they cut can seem half-hearted, at least when judged against the size of their stock portfolios.