Aww. You noticed!
And that Koch Brothers agenda is indeed the John Birch Society agenda.
By the way, did everyone see the âAlt-Right HEILS Victoryâ headline in the NYT?
Excellent article. Dems need to organize!!! Trump is clearly not going to be the populist hero people voted for, unless you get everything from Facebook and his Twitter. Hello, mainstream media. This is on you too!!!
Iâve been saying for years, not months, that weâre looking at attempts to bring us back to the Gilded Age. Iâve tried to say this to some GOP acquaintances with the reply of âWhatâs the Gilded Age? Is that a movie?â
A nice recap of the situation, TPM. I especially appreciate your reporters acknowledging the obvious.
Ultimately, most people will be taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes in order to enrich the already wealthy, but the direct effect of the Koch policies will damage businesses.
A weak middle class means weak profits, within an economy stuck in a declining cycle of overworked and unmotivated employees, broke customers jumping from their brands to dirt-cheap alternatives, a sick population requiring expensive care, markets shattered by disrupted mobility from more extreme weather events⌠the list goes on.
Please keep up the good work of informing Trumpâs voters, business allies, and career political gritters that their policies are taking them further from their goals.
An America as white and perforated as their paper towelsâŚ
Maybe someone clue Bernie. Millennials alone cannot take democracy back from this wave of cruel, short sighted, self-serving insanity. In any fair election, Hillary would have won. Donât be so quick to yell change: donât lose the middle. Purists might wake up to the fact that Citizens United makes money rule politics.
Again, the god-awards-his-faithful-with-abundance this-is-a-christian-nation crowd threw this election to Trump. Righteous Women did as their preacher told them, and voted Pence â er, Trump. Lies prevailed. The press served itself and were duped.
Both parties are the same is simply wrong, and progressives who spew this lie are part of the problem.
Nice recap, yes, and one that isnât being heard.
They are also taking the schools. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/spreading-the-free-market-gospel/413239/
I think this is the best single article Iâve read about whatâs likely to happen, and why itâs likely to happen, in the first year of Trumpâs presidency. If anything, the impact of the Koch network on the Trump presidency is perhaps under estimated a bit here. Itâs not just that he (and both houses of congress) will be enacting legislation from the three-ring binders that are ready to go, the executive branch appointees will be gutting the regulatory agencies and Iâm sure the largely corporate new staff will have ideas of their own. And, of course, part of the deal is to both break things in ways that are hard to fix and make it all harder to turn aroundâvoter suppression, and redistricting, is a small part of that, stuff like block grants to states, reworking mineral leasing, etc. is perhaps even harder to turn around.
This bit is exactly on target: " . . . the Koch network dream of an enfeebled U.S. domestic government is on the verge of realization. Unless Democrats learn to speak clearly and organize in many states and counties, no one will even be available to make the key changes visible or explain what is happening to disillusioned voters."
Yes, we know whatâs going to happenâthe federal government is going to look like Wisconsin, Alabama, Kansas, and (to some extent) NC very quicklyâand, sadly, we can try to fight it but the odds are slim. In the long run, making the changes visible and trying, as possible, to show the effects of running a state from the Koch playbooks is perhaps even more important. Weâve failed that in AL and Kansas, where there is effectively zero opposition, where not that things have fallen apart, the GOP in charge has completely avoided taking any political heat for a declining economy, cut pensions, education and health falling apart and so on. In part, thatâs because the GOP in those states has been very careful to cut off the flow of information about whatâs happening to voters and to co-opt Dem opposition. In Wisconsin and NC, there has been some pushback, even if itâs been a losing battle.
A weak middle class means weak profits, within an economy stuck in a declining cycle of overworked and unmotivated employees, broke customers jumping from their brands to dirt-cheap alternatives, a sick population requiring expensive care, markets shattered by disrupted mobility from more extreme weather events⌠the list goes on.
Please keep up the good work of informing Trumpâs voters, business allies, and career political gritters that their policies are taking them further from their goals.
(Can I say that Iâd MUCH rather have Theda as Guest Editor than Judis?)
While I certainly agree with the first para, I donât think the second will happen. There seems to be an idea on the Left that the more the country crashes and burns (which it will) the more the foral trumpers will âget it.â
Theyâll never get it. America will become like Kansas and they still wonât do anything about it. Theyâre too far gone at this point.
A Donald voter I know told me the one hope he has was that Donald would do is help clean up DC and I just thought to myself you are so fucking naive to think Donald Trump is an honest businessman. WTF! It folks like Trump that pay off politicians like almost all of them especially the Rs.
Hell YES!!
Personally I canât wait until the rubes have been totally fleeced of every last dollar and left to hang. Just the rude awakening they deserve.
Yeah, except we go right down with them. This is going to be widespread and affect every American and quite a number of folks overseas. It is no longer us vs. them. It is all us.
That ainât gonna happen, that theyâll have a rude awakening. Blame will probably be shifted towards anyone not on the Kochâs payroll.
This is a great article.
âUnless Democrats learn to speak clearly and organize in many states and
counties, no one will even be available to make the key changes visible
or explain what is happening to disillusioned voters.â
Itâs pretty much a truism that whatever is good for the Kochs is bad for America.
Great article. Well, half the voters arenât surprised.
And these purists and progressives thought that âKing Mobâ had less of a stink than (supposedly) âCrooked Hillaryâ.
We are all connected.
Like others here, I have been waiting to see a quality account of 1) how the Koch operations aided election results for right wing candidates and for Trump and 2) how this administrationâs personnel choices are setting the stage for the Koch crowd to perhaps get most everything they want. I expected Jane Mayer to write on this but so far she has not. High praise for Theda and TPM for getting this crucial story pushed forward.