O’Neil’s ‘Woketopus’ dark money trail started with the Southern Poverty Law Center
In unwinding the financial means by which progressives have captured the federal bureaucracy, there was one test case that stood out to Daily Signal Managing Editor Tyler O’Neil.
Having…

In unwinding the financial means by which progressives have captured the federal bureaucracy, there was one test case that stood out to Daily Signal Managing Editor Tyler O’Neil.
Having literally written the book about the nexus between the Southern Poverty Law Center and progressives that twisted an ostensible civil rights group into a weapon of hate and false accusations against conservatives, O’Neil began to notice similar patterns with other groups, he told The Lion.
“I found that those who were funding the anti-Israeli protests, for example, were using the same methods to finance other progressive groups that attacked conservatives and took over corporate boards,” O’Neil said.
In this way, a small group of elites, out-of-touch with the needs of ordinary Americans, has captured the federal bureaucracy. It’s a collective that O’Neil identifies as the “Woketopus” – also the title of his new book – because its neo-Marxist tenacles reach into every level of government and society.
“In the name of ‘equity,’ federal agencies have become the new monarchs, ruling over the lives of Americans with an iron fist wrapped in the velvet glove of progressive ideology,” said O’Neil.
The aim is to instill “woke” ideals into concrete policy at the bureaucratic level in government, non-profits and for-profit corporations, regardless of who is in Congress, the White House or the judiciary.
And the means by which they do it is dark money pools funded by the very wealthy, and elite fundraising vehicles which control the Democrat party.
The Tides Center, for example, receives funding from the Rockefellers, George Soros (through his Open Society organizations), the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
The Tides, in turn, funds almost every radical progressive ideology of any influence in America right now: Open borders, lawfare, LGBTQ, pro-abortion, neo-Marxist identity groups involving race and climate change, to name a few.
Groups such as anti-Israeli lobbyists and street protestors such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, get funding from the Tides either through third parties or directly from Tides funders, such as the Rockefellers, according to graphics provided by O’Neil.
Climate change activists also get money from the Tides, such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy.
On the Tides’ “good” list are weaponization groups, such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL), pressure groups that helped Biden wage lawfare against political opponents.
It helps to explain why Biden often made decisions that seemed to fly in the face of political convention, to the detriment of himself and his party.
For example, the Biden White House celebrated the Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday in 2024, an election year, despite knowing it would enrage a large number of voters who venerate Christ.
At the time, Biden denied issuing the proclamation, leaving one prominent opponent to wonder exactly who was running the White House.
“Who’s running the presidency?” Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis asked Fox News. “Is it a bunch of woke, 20-something-year-old White House staffers? So, I don’t know who’s in charge. The fact that he’s not owning up to it – either way, it’s bad.”
But according to O’Neil, it’s not the woke 20-somethings, but those funding them, such as Soros, Rockefeller, the Ford Foundation, the NEA and the AFT. These groups appear responsible for the decisions in the Biden White House that often contravened common sense.
The Tides and other groups aren’t entirely immune to public opinion, however.
While still supporting diversity, equity and inclusion programs with grants to non-profits, the Tides, which previously was a big grant-maker for Black Lives Matter (BLM), is engaged in a current dispute with the group.
The neo-Marxist racial protest group has suffered from charges of financial mismanagement and alleged private plundering of donations by top BLM executives that compelled a Tides-BLM divorce that’s become nasty.
It’s alleged that up to $9 million in BLM funding from Tides has disappeared.
But for the literal billions of dollars in funding provided by the Tides and its affiliates, $9 million in progressive money is a simple rounding calculation in accounting terms. And it barely affects even one of the gnarly progressive tentacles that ensnare and entrap American society in woke ideals, according to O’Neil.
“The administrative state has become an octopus, with tentacles reaching into every aspect of American life, squeezing the life out of freedom and free enterprise,” he said.