We don’t do coups

Lately when I’ve written about the latest nasty thing our government is doing I’ve been trying to carefully say “the GOP and its backers” or something similar. I try to get across that these financial backers are a large part of what is driving the meanness in the GOP.

The March-April issue of The Hightower Lowdown by Jim Hightower fills in the details, or at least as many details as he can in five pages. I’m not linking directly to the article because a subscription to the print edition of the Lowdown doesn’t also let me see the online articles.

This issue is a continuation of what he wrote about in February (and I discussed here) about how the Koch brothers are diligent in their dismantling of democracy. Some of the response Hightower got from that issue is, “This is America. We don’t do coups.”

So Hightower relates the tale of a coup attempt against FDR. Wall Street Bankers were upset that in 1933 Roosevelt raised taxes on them to pay for programs to assist the poor. They hired a general to lead an army of disaffected veterans from WWI to march on Washington. But instead of rallying the troops the general took his evidence to Congress, and they investigated. Though Congress issued a report confirming what the general claimed, bankers denounced him and the whole thing was omitted from history books.

But, Hightower says, the coup (way past an attempt) by the Koch brothers is much different. They have been patient – they’ve been working on this for 40 years. A lot of their early moves were quiet with a variety of names behind them. This effort is vast. And they didn’t fire a shot – instead they bought the GOP. That wasn’t a stretch for them. The combined wealth of David and Charles Koch is $122 billion.

Their goal is simple. Property – both existing wealth and the means to get it – is sacrosanct and cannot be restricted by a majority. Put in terms of ranking, their property is more important than you. That means We the People can neither tax the rich nor set rules they must follow, rules such as how to treat workers, consumers, the environment, and society as a whole. This goal is definitely an attack on democracy.

Alas, their arrogance has been amazingly and frighteningly successful.

Towards the big goal the Koch brothers and their rich allies have interim goals: eliminate limits on political spending, suppress voting rights, kill off labor unions, eliminate the right to sue corporations, rip up the social safety net, eliminate regulations, use state laws to prevent undesirable local laws, gerrymander, and pack courts. Which is pretty much everything we’ve been seeing the GOP do over the last few decades.

The Koch brothers have been accomplishing this with a wide array of foundations, think tanks, PACs, and various other ways to funnel cash and misdirect us from the source. They fund the Tea Party and similar groups. They have been donating to higher education with strings attached to push teachings of corporate conservatism. They’ve prompted high school classes, such as “Ethics, Economy, and Entrepreneurship” now being taught in Arizona (one guess to what their ethics are like). The National Federation of Independent Businesses, supposedly to help the little guys, has been subverted to help the big ones. They fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that creates model bills to be passed by controlled state legislatures. They get their names on museums to convince us they aren’t the bad guys. They fund advocacy groups such as the NRA and climate deniers. They became top sponsors of the PBS science show *Nova*. They fund and push court challenges to inconvenient laws. Their reach is vast. Hightower calls it the Kochtopus.

I’ve heard some laments if only Hillary Clinton were president! I’m now convinced that her presidency would have been stymied at least as Obama’s was and the GOP would have taken up its push to end democracy after her four or eight years. She could have only delayed what the Koch brothers are doing.