Dark Money Is Funding Democrat Influencers

First of all, and unfortunately in my view, a lot of Democrat-aligned influencers built their audiences the old-fashioned way--by building a following by saying what they think. I've not looked deeply into any particular "influencer," but I don't automatically assume that all of them are paid shills. 

But it sure looks like quite a few of them are, and that they are breaking both campaign finance laws and the terms of service for the social media platforms they post on. 

How? They are secretly taking money from a shady, dark money "nonprofit" funded by Arabella Advisors (about whom I wrote earlier today) to promote Democrats and left-wing agendas without revealing that they are doing so. In fact, they signed contracts that required them to conceal the fact that they were being paid to say certain things and promote specific politicians. 

A Dem dark money group offered influencers $8k/mo. to push progressive messaging — as long as they didn’t reveal they were taking the $.

“Your names aren’t showing up on, like, reports filed with the FEC,” a lawyer for @EliasLawGroup told the influencers. https://t.co/6zxGwEBSlb

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) August 27, 2025

It's deeply unethical, and also, almost certainly, illegal. It is also one of the more powerful ways that The Narrative™ is promoted, as part of a "messaging" ecosystem that shapes how people think about issues and people. 

The program itself is called "Chorus," which tells you what you need to know. It is about ensuring a coordinated message is promoted and all dissent within the ranks is suppressed. The influencers are told what to say, and contractually cannot criticize each other or politicians without prior approval. They can't even do interviews with politicians without approval. Chorus becomes MiniTru. 

Democrats hope that the secretive Chorus Creator Incubator Program, funded by a powerful liberal dark money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund, might tip the scales. The program kicked off last month, and creators involved were told by Chorus that over 90 influencers were set to take part. Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.

Influencers included in communication about the program, and in some cases an onboarding session for those receiving payments from The Sixteen Thirty Fund, include Olivia Julianna, the centrist Gen Z influencer who spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention; Loren Piretra, a former Playboy executive turned political influencer who hosts a podcast for Occupy Democrats; Barrett Adair, a content creator who runs an American Girl Doll–themed pro-DNC meme account; Suzanne Lambert, who has called herself a “Regina George liberal;” Arielle Fodor, an education creator with 1.4 million followers on TikTok; Sander Jennings, a former TLC reality star and older brother of trans influencer Jazz Jennings; David Pakman, who hosts an independent progressive show on YouTube covering news and politics; Leigh McGowan, who goes by the online moniker “Politics Girl”; and dozens of others. (The first two declined to comment; the rest did not respond to requests for comment.)

According to copies of the contract viewed by WIRED that creators signed, the influencers are not allowed to disclose their relationship with Chorus or The Sixteen Thirty Fund—or functionally, that they’re being paid at all.

Dozens of liberal influencers are believed to have been approached by Chorus about The Sixteen Thirty Fund financing opportunity this spring. They were told that Chorus appreciated the work they were doing online and were asked if they’d be interested in being part of the first cohort of a new program that Chorus was running to help “expand their reach and impact,” creators tell WIRED.

If you follow social media, you have seen the impact of the chorus effect. Talking points go out, and every "influencer" starts saying the same thing. "Weird." "Existential threat to Democracy." "Genocide." It is intended to look like a groundswell, but its goal is to create a groundswell through what amounts to a psychological warfare tactic. "Everybody believes it, so it must be true."

The contracts reviewed by WIRED prohibit standard partnership disclosures, declaring that creators will “not publicize” their relationship with Chorus or tell others that they’re members of the program “without Chorus’s prior express consent.” They also forbid creators from “disclos[ing] the identity of any Funder” and give Chorus the ability to force creators to remove or correct content based solely on the organization’s discretion if that content was made at a Chorus-organized event.

“There are some real great advantages to … housing this program in a nonprofit,” Graham Wilson, a lawyer working with Chorus, said to creators on a Zoom call reviewed by WIRED. “It gives us the ability to raise money from donors. It also, with this structure, it avoids a lot of the public disclosure or public disclaimers—you know, ‘Paid for by blah blah blah blah’—that you see on political ads. We don’t need to deal with any of that. Your names aren’t showing up on, like, reports filed with the FEC.” (Wilson did not reply to a request for comment.)

Influencers get paid on what appears to be a sliding scale depending on their followers--also giving the lie to it being an "incubator"--with top influencers getting $8000/month to repeat propaganda. In the media space, that is real money, especially when you are also monetizing your content. 

The goal of Chorus, according to a fundraising deck obtained by WIRED, is to “build new infrastructure to fund independent progressive voices online at scale.” The creators who joined the incubator are expected to attend regular advocacy trainings and daily messaging check-ins. Those messaging check-ins are led by Cohen on “rapid response days.” The creators also have to attend at least two Chorus “newsroom” events per month, which are events Chorus plans, often with lawmakers.

Elizabeth Dubois, an assistant professor and university research chair in politics, communication, and technology at the University of Ottawa who has researched the ways influencers are reshaping the US political system, says that “we are seeing influencers being pulled into these dark campaigns or shadow campaigns, where the legal aspect is murky at best.”

“Sometimes it is actually clear that influencers are being used to, for example, evade spending limits,” she says. “I think that we need to remember that for democracy to thrive, we do need transparency around who is paying for political messages.”

Don Heider, the chief executive of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, says that the outlined restrictions violate ethical norms. “If the contract for getting money from a particular interest group says you can’t disclose it, then it’s pretty simple, you can’t take the money,” he says. “We’re living in an era where a lot of powerful people have basically taken the rule book and thrown it out the window.”

Keith Edwards, a Democratic content creator who has skyrocketed to fame on YouTube since starting his channel last year, was not invited to be part of the program but believes that the way it was structured seemed “predatory.” He says that he would never agree to take part in a program that was run in secret or wouldn’t allow him to disclose funding.

Chorus is funded through Arabella's "Sixteen Thirty Fund," a name that itself is intended to conceal its purpose. It is intentionally bland and opaque in meaning. Influence Watch describes the group:

The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a left-of-center lobbying and advocacy organization founded in 2008 which operates alongside its charitable sister-group, the New Venture Fund. Both groups are administered by Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropy consulting firm that caters to left-leaning clients. ⁴

The Sixteen Thirty Fund is known as one of the largest “dark money” groups in the United States. The fund funnels money from anonymous big donors to candidates, PACs, and advocacy groups at the federal and state level. In 2020, Kurtz led the Fund to channel $410 million to Democrats for the election, a 175% increase over 2019. $128 million was directed to America Votes, at which Kurtz used to work, to expand voter access. Forward Future USA Action, Priorities USA Action, and League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, at which Kurtz also used to work, all received significant funds from the Sixteen Thirty Fund. ⁵

The whole point is to funnel money from anonymous big donors to causes and campaigns to which they have maxxed out their contributions or with which they don't want to be publicly associated. Everybody knows when Elon Musk or Peter Thiel is pushing an issue; few people have any idea where this money is coming from, and much of it flows to illegal or unethical activity. 

Spehar and other content creators have accused Chorus of attempting to establish themselves as a gatekeeper to Democratic political leaders. “What we need is for people to invest in independent media, and that doesn’t necessarily mean investing in a consulting group that is going to become a middleman for independent media,” says Spehar.

Several influencers who doggedly defended Chorus throughout that controversy, including Elizabeth Booker Houston, a Democratic comedian and content creator on Instagram, and Allie O’Brien, a progressive creator with more than 600,000 followers on TikTok, were involved in membership talks for the highest-paid tier in Chorus’ new creator incubator program. (Houston did not respond to requests for comment; O’Brien declined to comment.)

Still, some creators heard about The Sixteen Thirty Fund and Chorus funding initiative and applied to join.

Coordinated messaging is the key to building a Narrative™.  News people get the talking points, "influencers" start chanting, politicians keep pushing the same line, and in the end, even absurd ideas become received wisdom, at least in the target audience. 

That's why governments deployed psychological warfare during the pandemic. 

Could you call Chorus a "psyop?" To paraphrase a now-famous line: it has all the hallmarks of a psychological warfare operation. 

PS: to answer the obvious question about the image: that is a North Korean troupe doing a propaganda dance and chorus.