Why is the head of a secret political empire worried about “free and open debate”?
Charles Koch says he is scared. The billionaire industrialist recently wrote to the Wall Street Journal that he’s afraid America is “turning its back” on principles that have traditionally underpinned American progress, most notably the “free and open exchange of ideas.” This was an unexpected claim from someone who, along with his brother David, is a shadow master of the dark arts of influencing American education, elections, and public discourse.
The Kochs’ massive, secretive propaganda machine and political operation is reported to be bigger and better than that of the Republican Party. They deploy it from Wichita to Washington to protect their corporate profits and promote their extremist worldview. From lying about climate change, to undermining programs that make up our social safety net, to opposing laws that reduce gun violence, to fighting marriage equality, the Kochs’ tentacles infiltrate all parts of America’s public debates.
Mr. Koch asserted a deep concern for “free speech”; surprising, when it’s the Kochs’ paid operatives that go into mass hysterics about “ tyranny” when anyone “freely speaks” about who it is that funds their massive climate denial machine. The president of Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity has publicly threatened that any Republican candidate who speaks for legislation to combat climate change would “be at a severe disadvantage in the Republican nomination process.” It would mean their “political peril.” Free speech and open exchange of ideas is all well and good unless you’re a Republican Senator wanting to work on a climate bill: then down comes the Kochs’ political hammer.
Then came Mr. Koch’s feigned distress that higher education “has become increasingly hostile to the free exchange of ideas.” As Jane Mayer describes in her book Dark Money, the Kochs see infiltration of academia as the first phase in their “libertarian production line.” Over ten years the Kochs have spent more than $100 million on secretive grant agreements at more than 350 colleges and universities to inject the Koch’s free-market, low-regulation gospel. One of their first campus projects was the Mercatus Center, a think tank located on the campus of George Mason University that the Washington Post found was “funded largely by Koch Industries.” Clayton Coppin, who taught history at George Mason and compiled a confidential study of Charles Koch’s political activities, describes Mercatus as “a lobbying group disguised as a disinterested academic program.” So much for academic freedom.
And then, of all people, Mr. Koch decried “corporate welfare.” Wow. The Kochs should be the last to talk about corporate welfare, when their fossil fuel industry enjoys and fights for the biggest public subsidy in world history — $700 billion a year in the United States alone, by the International Monetary Fund’s measure. Indeed the capitalist Kochs become fine socialists when it comes to socializing the costs of fossil fuel pollution onto the rest of us.
But perhaps what makes me most doubt Mr. Koch’s concern for freedom and openness is the hundreds of millions he and his brother spend through a vast network of front groups meant to influence elections and advance the Kochs’ political agenda, creeping even into issues wholly unrelated to their business. According to tax filings, the Koch-linked Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, an organization that does not disclose its original donors, funnels money through the National Rifle Association into political “independent expenditures,” unlimited, undisclosed money spent in political races; and it funnels money into “CitizenLink,” a political nonprofit arm of groups dedicated to banning gay marriage and restricting a woman’s right to choose. And as many of my colleagues pointed out on the Senate Floor several weeks ago, Koch money is behind a slimy web of climate denial front groups designed to hide their common funding from the fossil fuel industry.
If Mr. Koch is truly committed to a “free and open exchange of ideas,” he should open the books on the whole shadowy political network the Kochs have propped up or coopted to do their bidding. It has been reported, but cannot be proven in these campaign finance shadows, that the brothers have already spent over $400 million building to secretly influence the 2016 federal elections, part of $750 million they pledged to spend. News reports show the Kochs building massive campaign operations in key swing states across the country through creepy front organizations like Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity. These covertly funded political front operations are not deployed to engage in a “free and open” exchange of ideas, but to subvert democracy to the benefit of their secret funders.
Anyone truly interested in a free and open democracy, rather than billionaire string-pullers operating in the shadows, should support the “We the People” agenda introduced in the Senate, which would require disclosure of all campaign contributions, amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United, and rein in special interest lobbying.
Society is indeed better off when we share knowledge with one another and have open debates about the issues in the public arena, with the hands and motives of the players identified. But those who profit from it prefer the present system of special interest corporations and lobbyists rigging the system behind closed doors. Guess which side of that contest the Kochs are on.
