The Koch Brothers and the Rise of Mainstream Radical Conservatism

I remember when I started following politics. DuringSecurity, minimum wage laws, gun control and income
my junior year in college I conducted a researchtaxes.
project about climate change with the intent to findIt is no surprise, therefore, that they perceive climate
out conclusively whether it’s real or not. In thosechange legislation as an encroachment on their rights.
days I naively assumed there is a valid argumentThe Kochs are dangerous radicals, and the power
both for and against the theory. In fact, the generalthey wield is frightening. One cannot quarrel rationally
conviction that most issues are too complex andwith someone who essentially calls for the abolition
subjective to reach definitive conclusions about hadof government. Previously, those with such an
previously impelled me to avoid following politicsattitude were confined to the fringes of the political
altogether.spectrum. In 1980 Ed Clark’s libertarian ticket
Then I read Climate of Extremes, Global Warminggarnered only 1% of the vote. But ironically,
Science they don’t want you to know, byReagan’s victory has ultimately been a great
Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling JR. Afterboon to the anarchist cause. The misleading short
earnestly perusing roughly half the book, I asked myterm stability brought about by his presidency
science teacher to respond to the seeminglypopularized and seemingly justified the illusion that
unanswerable objections I had encountered. My“government is not the solution to our problem.
professor took a look at the book and said, coolly,Government is the problem.” Sure Reagan’s
“these come out every couple of months… Iradical agenda ushered in an era of pervasive
would have preferred to let you discover this onanti-government sentiment and devastating
your own, but because you have a deadline I havederegulation that almost destroyed the system in
to tell you this book was put together by the Cato2008. (For details check out my analysis called Why
Institute, which is propaganda, like FOX News.” IEntropy Must Guide Free Market Policy). But by
had never heard of the Cato Institute and knewcomparison his policies were modest.
nothing about the dimensions of deceit in the politicalNow, however, we’ve witnessed the Bush era,
realm.which took Reagan’s budget busting fiscal
Later that day I fact-checked Climate of Extremesfecklessness to its logical extreme conclusion and laid
and was horrified. Nearly every major point thethe ground for what Alan Greenspan has described
authors make is a gross distortion. (For details checkas the greatest financial crisis he’s ever seen or
out my essay called Climate Change: Honestheard of. It ought to be clear to all that unfettered
Skepticism versus Disinformation, a Shakespeareancapitalism is unsustainable. Many assumed and hoped
Analysis.)that Obama would easily recapture the country’s
By the time my research project ended, it becameconfidence and belief in the necessity of government.
clear to me that some political issues are black andYet ironically, the right’s reaction has been to
white, and it is therefore not vain to investigateturn even more radical than ever before. The
matters, since objective truth can be obtained. In theunrivalled influence of the Koch brothers parallels the
case of climate change, the earth is unequivocallyunprecedented nature of contemporary conservative
warming because of anthropogenic activity, and theextremism, which has become the mainstream.
only reason many people remain skeptical (50% ofWhereas in 1980 only 1% of voters favored the idea
Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll) isof dismantling basic government agencies, today
because of disinformation.most tea party rallies feature strident calls for doing
But why, I wondered, why would the Cato Instituteaway with the Federal Reserve, the SEC, minimum
(among many other media outlets) pay people to liewage, gun control and taxes. And this in the
about something so important?aftermath of the Fed’s single-handedly saving us
After reading Jane Mayer’s landmark Newfrom a depression by boldly issuing bailouts to banks
Yorker expose' about the Koch brothers, I now havethat, unbeknown to most, earned the taxpayers
my answer. According to Mayer, “in 1977, thebillions of dollars on dividends and interest! (
Kochs provided the funds to launch the nation’sConsidering how ripe the context should theoretically
first libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute.”be for the decisive overthrow of radical
The think tank functions as one of many Kochconservatism, it can be no coincidence that such
funded outlets that routinely fabricate information towide-spread ignorance and foolishness has taken root
discredit the science behind global warming.lock in step with the rise of disinformation-based
Not surprisingly, a large chunk of the $35 billion Kochmainstream media, which has now added the internet
empire, which is third behind those of Bill Gates andto an arsenal that already featured FOX News and
Warren Buffett, consists of “oil refineries intalk radio. The Kochs have certainly been spending
Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota,” totalingmillions (and probably billions) to misinform the public
“some four thousand miles of pipeline.” Infor decades, but their recent success takes
addition, the Koch brothers outspent ExxonMobil onadvantage of modern technology by infesting media
fighting climate change legislation between 2005 andoutlets with carefully crafted lies designed to look like
2008. According to Charles Lewis, who founded atruth.
nonpartisan watchdog agency called the Center forJust as the tea party movement can convincingly
Public Integrity, the Kochs are “the Standard Oilcast itself as a grassroots cause to the credulous,
of our times.”the book Climate of Extremes appears persuasive to
But they are motivated just as much by philosophythe unsuspecting. Tea party activists have used the
as they are by money. True, greed has no limits, andweb to schedule protests and build an endless army
it is possible the Kochs are evil enough to imperilof blogs that portray the movement as a product of
civilization solely for the sake of revenue. But in thethe common man. Similarly, Climate of Extremes was
case of climate change the stakes are higher thanwritten by actual climate scientists. One has to dig
with other Koch priorities, such as changing the taxdeep, therefore, to discover that the Tea Party
code or dismantling government agencies, all of whichnever would have gotten off the ground without the
are dangerous enough. With global warming we aresinister and surreptitious succor of the Koch brothers,
dealing with the likely destruction of society. It is fairjust as one must actively fact-check Climate of
to suppose, therefore, that their fanatical campaignExtremes to uncover its falsehoods.
stems from a broader political outlook.The days when I used to avoid politics because of
The Koch brothers, who essentially and surreptitiouslymisguided relativity and naiveté seem like ages
created and fund the Tea Party movement throughago. Climate of Extremes may have been my
front groups such as Americans for Prosperity alongwake-up call, but Mayer’s article about the
with many other radical organizations, are anarchists.billionaire brothers confirms the need to combat
Simply put. As Mayer reports, during the 1980disinformation-based-extremism. It is a subtle poison,
presidential campaign they strongly backed Ed Clark,and if we don’t train ourselves to think critically
a libertarian who, amazingly, ran to the right ofand expose frauds for what they are, the
Ronald Reagan and pushed for the abolition of: theRepublicans (and, perhaps, the radicals on the left) will
FBI, CIA, SEC, Department of Energy, Sociallikely recapture power and erode the republic.