done better had I been on the front lines of 2014, according to Mayer, when Repub- defending reproductive rights. licans moved further right and won the Meanwhile, abortion-rights advocates U.S. Senate while expanding their House can hardly be blamed for their failure to majority and control in dozens of states. bring together pro- and anti-abortion But the ultimate prize still beckons. To rights people. Since no one thinks abor- take the presidency, too, the Koch network tions are the best means of birth con- is on course to spend close to $900 mil- trol, we can understand why compromise lion on public education, advertisements, seemed appealing. Perhaps joint recom- and both acquiring data about voters and mendations for reducing the abortion rate contacting them. According to Mayer (and could occur when contraception is easily other journalists, such as Kenneth Vogel at accessible to everyone, and when our ), the financial and staff resources population is no longer so vulnerable to of the Koch network now exceed those of the right-wing charges that feminism and the Republican Party apparatus itself. sexual freedom will destroy our society. The timing of Mayer’s book is slightly awkward, because the 2016 presidential Linda Gordon teaches history at NYU. She campaign has not unfolded as intended by has written about the history of reproduction either the Kochs or the GOP establishment control in The Moral Property of Women: A (whoever that may now be). Sure, a billion- History of Birth Control Politics in Amer- aire is leading in GOP primaries, but Donald ica (University of Illinois Press, 2002). Her Trump is hardly a Koch acolyte—in fact, he most recent book is Feminism Unfinished: is the only one of the GOP contenders who A Short, Surprising History of American has not auditioned at some Koch donor Women’s Movements (Liveright, 2015). summit or activist gathering. Trump calls for building a wall on the Mexican border, deporting millions of currently undocu- mented residents, and preventing Mus- S p r in g 2016 · Who Owns the GOP? lims from entering the United States. But Theda Skocpol is he an anti-government conservative? He advocates tax increases for top investors : The Hidden History of the Bil- and hints he would protect Social Secu- t D issen lionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right rity and Medicare from the cuts or priva- by tization favored by many right-wingers, Doubleday, 2016, 449 pp. including the Kochs. A second 2016 GOP presidential frontrunner, hardline Senator , holds to more orthodox Dark Money by investigative journalist free-market positions, but he is loathed by Jane Mayer appears just as America heads other GOP officeholders and many conser- toward yet another high-stakes, ideologi- vative elites. He, too, is hardly the candi- cally polarized election. The book expands date GOP leaders or Koch honchos hoped on Mayer’s famous article, “Covert Oper- would move to the fore. Of those still in the ations,” published by in running, Marco Rubio would surely be their August 2010. Drawing on public records, top choice, because he puts a youthful, newly unearthed documents, and hun- Hispanic face on the most extreme free- dreds of interviews, it recounts decades market and pro-billionaire policies. of far-right efforts to reshape U.S. politics, With the caveat that no one knows culminating in the recent construction by what may happen before the Republican the multibillionaire Koch brothers, Charles National Convention in July, the early 2016 and David, of an “integrated political net- state of play illustrates both the strengths work” fueled by donations from hundreds and limits of Jane Mayer’s magisterial of wealthy conservatives. Aspiring to save analysis. Mayer’s book reveals a lot about the country from liberals by electing ultra- the ways in which right-wing fat cats free-market Republicans, the Koch-led have been able to challenge the Repub- plutocrats “got their money’s worth” in lican Party and pull its candidates and

142 officeholders toward extreme right-wing about such tactics with quiet outrage and agendas that are often out of step with the no sense of irony. But this is an ironic tale, preferences of the majority of the Amer- because liberal nonprofits and foundations ican public (and, at times, also at odds with like Ford were at the forefront of many those of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). U.S. social movements and policy innova- Yet Mayer fails to put the efforts of the tions from the 1960s to the 1980s. Gains in right-wing billionaires into a larger political civil rights, environmental protection, and and social context. By focusing on elite workplace regulation alarmed conserva- idea production and election messaging, tives, who soon devised their own ways to Mayer overlooks divisions within the right use such vehicles in more nakedly ideo- and offers no insights that could help us logical and strategic ways. More than in understand the unruly Trump surge. Dark any other advanced nation, U.S. tax laws Money portrays an unstoppable, unified make it easy for very wealthy people to use far-right juggernaut led by plutocrats. It taxpayer subsidies to push their values. As correctly alerts us to many aspects of their Mayer convincingly details, “weaponized” secretive, unaccountable machinations. conservative philanthropy is at the heart of But the full story of what is happening on our secretive, democratically unaccount- the right is more complex and volatile. able, plutocratic politics in an era of bur- geoning economic inequalities.

“Weaponizing” Conservative Philanthropy The Full Koch Monty Dark Money’s newest revelations appear in The last two-thirds of Dark Money vaults the first, historical part of the book. Mayer from the 1970s and 1980s into the Obama tracks the history, showing era. After making early and sustained Reviews how father Fred launched a petrochemi- investments in generating conservative cal company that would later become the ideas through the , the Mer- core of the huge financial and multi-indus- catus Center, and grants to academics, the trial conglomerate directed by son Charles Kochs moved on to offer funding for organi- and the source of the vast fortune he and zations to sell free-market policies and help his brother David deploy in politics. Fred elect cooperative politicians. In 2003, the was also a founding member of the radical Kochs started to host twice-yearly “sem- right Society who urged hatred inars,” that is, donor summits to educate of government and fear of American “com- wealthy conservatives about free-market munism” upon his sons. The family his- politics. According to Mayer, the semi- tory illuminates why Charles and David nars were originally meant to raise addi- grew up to be, in effect, libertarian lenin- tional money for ’ lobbying ists (small “l”), determined to use central- efforts. That is hard to believe, because the ized managerial authority to push their early seminars were boring talk-fests with take on “freedom.” They jettisoned their very few participants—not the best way to father’s proclivity for conspiracy theories raise lobbying money. Spreading ideas and but retained his unmitigated hatred of lib- building moral solidarity among wealthy erals and active government. conservatives have always been important Mayer’s early chapters also focus on to the Kochs. As Mayer aptly puts it, “the other wealthy right-wing families, espe- Kochs . . . succeeded in persuading hun- cially the Mellon Scaifes, Olins, and dreds of the other richest conservatives Bradleys, who pioneered conservative in the country to give them control over manipulations of U.S. tax laws applicable their millions of dollars in contributions.” to charitable nonprofit organizations. As They are collective goods providers for the long as family foundations and nonprofits wealthy right, which depends on everyone, claim to devote 51 percent of their activi- including the Kochs themselves, believing ties to education and other non-electoral that their cause is a moral crusade. activities, they can legally and secretly Saying little about Koch efforts from fund political advocacy. Mayer writes 2003 through 2008, Mayer resumes the

143 speaking at the 2015 Defending the American Dream Summit, August 2015. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

story in 2009. “Obama’s election,” she used for? I was especially interested to see S p r in g 2016 · writes, “stirred such deep and widespread what Mayer would say about that, because fear among the conservative business along with colleagues I am currently con- elite that the conference was swarmed, ducting a research project on “The Shifting becoming a hub of political resistance.” U.S. Political Terrain” that tracks reorgani- t D issen Every six months Koch strategies have zations on the left and right in U.S. politics been updated—to fight Obamacare, win since the 1990s. Like Mayer, my colleagues midterm elections in 2010, wage the and I find that the post–2000 Koch net- “mother of all wars” for the presidency work of political organizations has shifted in 2012, and learn from defeat to pre- resources and clout on the right away from pare for renewed victories in 2014 and the formal Republican Party apparatus. 2016. At each conclave donors compete But we have a somewhat different take on with one another to pledge big money the network’s goals and methods. Mayer that the Kochs and their political associ- portrays the Koch operation as a vast ates can deploy without public footprints. scattering of donations to dozens of orga- Pledges have skyrocketed from tens of nizations, including longstanding business millions into hundreds of millions. In addi- groups, think tanks, and Christian-right tion to Obama’s presidency, Mayer portrays and gun-owners’ groups. Above all, she the 2010 Citizens United decision by the emphasizes direct and indirect Koch Supreme Court as an important spur to funding for election ads and public mes- Koch fundraising, although she acknowl- saging. For example, many pages in Dark edges that the super-wealthy had long Money are spent describing the Center to before discovered ways to get around any Protect Patient Rights, an advocacy entity legal roadblocks to political giving. Mayer used by longtime professional consul- may not realize it, but her book offers evi- tant Sean Noble to channel funding for dence against the notion that Citizens political advertisements. In Mayer’s telling, United has been a game changer. the Koch political operation seems mostly What is all the Koch-raised money focused on polling and messaging to help

144 elect Republicans or attack Democratic efforts to block government action on cli- legislation such as healthcare reform or mate change. cap and trade. But our research suggests Mayer calls AFP the “flagship” Koch that these efforts are less important to the group, but she offers little analysis of this overall Koch political strategy than some- massive federation and instead largely thing they began doing years ago—making focuses on minor Koch-connected opera- sustained investments in a huge, nation- tions. Why? For the most part, she portrays wide, multipurpose political federation the Koch network as primarily devoted to called (AFP). countering Democrats and funding GOP Launched as a nonprofit in 2004, AFP candidates. We have found mounting evi- is centrally directed like a privately held dence to suggest, however, that the Koch corporation or authoritarian party, but it is network, starting under President George also a multilevel political organization with W. Bush, has been primarily focused on paid staff members who deploy resources pulling the GOP policy agenda to the and mobilize volunteer conservative activ- right by manipulating careers as well as ists both nationally and within most U.S. money. My research group has collected states. Between 2005, when former Chris- detailed career data showing that AFP not tian-right organizer Tim Phillips took the only engages in electioneering and lob- helm at AFP, and early 2009, when Presi- bying, but also offers very attractive career dent Obama moved into the White House, opportunities to Republicans. AFP is virtu- AFP spread permanent paid directors (and ally a parallel political party set up to the often additional staffers) to seventeen right of the GOP, especially in the states states in all regions. Before Obama, AFP below the level of the self-enclosed Koch sank roots in fully half of the thirty-four directorate. AFP state directors very often states in which it would have paid directors come from GOP staff positions and, after Reviews by 2015, and the first AFP states encom- working for the Kochs, go on to hold even passed about three-fifths of the U.S. popu- more important posts directing Republican lation (as well as most GOP Senators and campaigns or running legislative or execu- members of the House of Representatives). tive staffs that set policy agendas. Because North Carolina and Wisconsin, two states we see AFP as the most important Koch for which Mayer provides vivid evidence of organization and stress the circulation of radical-right shifts, were among the first people, not just money, our findings differ organized by AFP (in 2004 and 2005). subtly but importantly from Mayer’s. Run by dozens of national, regional, Toward the end of Dark Money, Mayer and state-level managers, AFP has long highlights recent Koch efforts to set up worked during and between elections to sophisticated operations to mine voter pull Republicans toward the far right on data. This is an excellent example of a core Koch issues such as taxes and the Koch-network effort to provide resources scope of government. In addition, coun- Republicans need—and thus help Koch tering and disabling public-sector unions operatives penetrate campaigns and in many states was always a top goal, not party committees. But Koch resources only because these unions provide funds create a dilemma. GOPers may need and mobilize votes for Democrats, but also many resources the Koch network has because they support public programs and to offer: voter data, money for advertise- have cooperated at times with moderate ments, citizen activists, and so forth. To get Republican legislators and governors. Our access to these resources, we are likely to research shows that AFP-organized states see more and more GOP candidates hire have effectively pushed GOPers to pass Koch operatives and audition for Koch unpopular bills curbing union rights. May- donor support. But the price for getting er’s book says little about the centrality Koch resources is accepting their ultra- of the Koch crusade to destroy unions. free-market policy agenda, which in many Battles over legislation are not her cen- respects is not popular with voters who tral focus, except for an excellent account the GOP also needs to win competitive in chapter eight of the right’s unremitting national and statewide elections.

145 Missing Right Populists at least 900 local groups, individually Most of my reservations about Mayer’s fine named Tea Party units that met regularly. book are matters of emphasis. But I have Vanessa and I worked with student crucial disagreements with her chapter on researchers to document those groups as the Tea Party, which misses the totality of of early 2011. In addition, we attended local forces buffeting U.S. conservatism and the meetings in New England, Arizona, and Vir- Republican Party. It looks as if Mayer inter- ginia and did face-to-face interviews with viewed professional advocates who over- leaders and members of local Tea Party sold her on their contributions to Tea Party groups. Such evidence was carefully cali- protests. She repeatedly points to blog brated with national surveys of the roughly posts and talking points issued by oper- 15–25 percent of all Americans who said atives working for AFP, FreedomWorks, they sympathized with the Tea Party, half and other well-funded advocacy groups of whom identify as Republicans, including to support her portrayal of the Tea Party a smaller subset that reported actively upsurge as little more than a profession- contributing money to the Tea Party. ally orchestrated media melodrama ginned We learned that grassroots Tea Par- up to offer an illusion of popular reaction tiers were far from disciplined libertarian against the early Obama administration. followers of ultra-free-market advocacy This approach mistakes bragging by oper- groups. Local Tea Party groups met in atives for reality and overlooks widespread churches, libraries, and restaurants, and popular anger and autonomous grassroots collected small contributions or sold activity on the right. books, pins, bumper stickers, and other Especially concerning to me is that Tea Party paraphernalia on commission to Mayer mistakenly quotes a sentence from cover their modest costs. They did not get my 2011 book with Vanessa Williamson, by on checks from the Koch brothers or The Tea Party and the Remaking of Repub- any other wealthy advocacy organizations. lican Conservatism, where she presents us Furthermore, the views of both grass- S p r in g 2016 · as agreeing with her top-down argument, roots Tea Party activists and of many other when that sentence actually appeared in Republican-leaning voters who have sym- a paragraph summarizing an argument pathized with this label do not align with with which we disagreed. Our book about free-market dogmas. Research by political t D issen the Tea Party from 2009 into 2011 showed scientist Christopher Parker at the Univer- that it was never a single organization or sity of Washington reinforces our conclu- movement, but instead the product of sion that ordinary Tea Party activists and the interplay of top-down and bottom-up sympathizers are worried about sociocul- political forces. From the top, tural changes in the United States, angry and other right-wing media outlets hyped and fearful about immigration, freaked out the “Tea Party” label as a way for conser- by the presence in the White House of a vative voters to express anger at newly black liberal with a Muslim middle name, installed President Obama and Democratic and fiercely opposed to what they view as congressional majorities; and many pro- out of control “welfare spending” on the fessional advocacy organizations jumped poor, minorities, and young people. Many on the bandwagon, offering buses to carry Tea Partiers benefit from Social Security, people to rallies where their own opera- Medicare, and military veterans’ programs, tives gave speeches. But these top-down and do not want them to be cut or priva- maneuvers were not the driving force of tized. About half of Tea Party activists or the movement. Ordinary conservative citi- sympathizers are also Christian conserva- zens and community activists, almost all tives intensely concerned with banning white and mostly older, provided angry abortion and repealing gay marriage. passion and volunteered their energies to I went back to our data on local Tea make the early Tea Party more than just Party websites to further test Mayer’s argu- occasional televised rallies. Grassroots Tea ment that AFP orchestrated this upsurge. Partiers accomplished an utterly remark- Did states with AFP directors and staff in able feat: starting in 2009, they organized place by 2011 have more Tea Party groups

146 Dark Money does not explain the Trump surge. Photo by Jamelle Bouie. Reviews in relation to their adult or white adult grassroots Tea Partiers and their many populations? The answer is no; there is sympathizers were notoriously ornery. Of no statistically significant relationship. course, they voted for Republicans running When Vanessa and I interviewed Tea Par- against the hated Democrats—contrib- tiers in early 2011, we found many who uting to the high turnouts of older white knew nothing about professional advo- voters that propelled the wave of GOP vic- cacy groups claiming to speak for them tories in 2010. But these citizens did not on television and still others who mightily trust or accept cues from GOP regulars. distrusted such top-down efforts. Mayer In the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, ordi- refers to email lists from a few profes- nary Tea Party voters (and many Christian- sional organizations to claim that the Tea right voters, too) ended up supporting Party gained less support, proportional to Senate candidates in Delaware, Missouri, the U.S. population, than the tiny propor- Alaska, and Indiana that GOP leaders and tion of Americans involved in the Amer- the Koch network would have preferred ican Liberty League of the 1930s or the not be nominated, because they were not estimated 5 percent who approved of the positioned to do well in the general elec- in the 1960s. This is just tion. In the 2012 presidential primaries, plain wrong. Ideas and passions may be conservative voters searched desperately similar across time, but, according to our for an alternative to , and the research, angry, culturally fearful conser- assorted candidates they tried to push for- vative populists not controlled from above ward were not Koch favorites. By now, the are a major force in the early twenty-first- “Tea Party” label has faded from public century United States. Tens of millions of view, is rarely mentioned on Fox News, GOP-leaning citizens, roughly a fifth of the and is not very popular in national surveys population and about half of Republican either. But the angry conservative citizens voters, feel this way. who fueled the rise of the grassroots Tea During the early Obama years, Party in the early Obama years are still with

147 us—and now many of them are supporting the Koch-supported Speaker of the House, the likes of Ted Cruz, known for offending Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Washington, or , who gives has already drafted into congressional blustery voice to their strong passions and bills. If the new president is a loose cannon fears about immigration. These are people like Donald Trump, he may go off script but who overwhelmingly vote Republican, but is likely to accept much of this far-right most are not Koch followers. agenda. Trump lacks his own policy cadre, Today’s Republican Party is being and his national campaign manager, Corey revamped and torn asunder from con- Lewandowski, was previously the highly tradictory directions. Almost all GOP successful director of AFP-New Hampshire candidates and legislators, even most and will be able to draw appointees and presidential aspirants, espouse free- ideas from the Koch network. Finally, if the market, anti-government ideas like those new president is Democrat Hillary Clinton, pushed by the Koch network. But these she will have a guerrilla war on her hands. honchos are not necessarily carrying Democrats are in the minority in Congress voters with them. Many centrist voters do and in most state governments, and Koch not want to cut education or gut the Envi- leaders and their well-organized allies ronmental Protection Agency, while many are working through a radicalized GOP to right-wing voters care most about stop- enact policy changes that will be hard to ping immigration, outlawing abortions, and reverse. The Koch brothers and other dark- cutting back on what they view as govern- money oligarchs may have to put up, now ment largesse for the poor. The core Koch and again, with unruly grassroots popu- agenda of bashing unions, slashing taxes lists and occasional Democratic victories. for the rich, blocking environmental pro- But they have the entire Republican Party tection measures, and dismantling Social in their grasp. They are patient and deter- Security is not the top priority for many mined—and in it for the long haul. conservative voters. S p r in g 2016 · When the dust settles, maybe dark Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Profes- money will still determine the 2016 Repub- sor of Government and Sociology at Harvard lican presidential nomination. Certainly, University and the Director of the Scholars such big spenders will fund unrelenting Strategy Network. Co-authored with Alex- t D issen attacks against the Democratic nominee. ander Hertel-Fernandez, her recent research But all signs indicate that whoever moves paper on “The Koch Effect: The Impact of a into the White House in January 2017 is Cadre-Led Network on American Politics” was going to have to maneuver on a funda- presented at the annual meeting of the South- mentally reorganized U.S. political terrain, ern Political Science Association in San Juan, where the Republican Party has been colo- Puerto Rico, January 8, 2016. nized and redirected by the Koch network. The Kochs don’t just write checks for elec- tions and think tanks. Nor are they “rivals” of the Republican Party as many observers suggest, because they are more like para- sites who depend upon the continued life of their host. With AFP at the center, the Koch network of carefully coordinated organizations has made great progress at redirecting the GOP, leaving its label and institutional shell in place, but propel- ling its governing choices in radical new directions. If the next U.S. president is a joint GOP-Koch favorite of some sort, he will eagerly sign into law radical budgets shrinking federal domestic programs that

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