Mayer has been often honored for her reporting and her books. ”Dark Money” is yet another investigation into the often hidden alternative world of the Far Right.
We, the People, call to the stand as our next witness, Jane Mayer:
Mayer: “During the 1970s, a handful of the nation’s wealthiest corporate captains felt overtaxed and overregulated and decided to fight back..they launched an ambitious, privately financed war of ideas to radically change the country. They didn’t want to merely win elections; they wanted to change how Americans thought..to “save” America..by turning the clock back to the Gilded Age…Charles Koch[‘s] ambitions were..even more radical: to pull the government out “at the root.”
”The weapon ..of these wealthy activists was philanthropy..the conservative rich created a new generation of hyper-political private foundations..to invest in ideology like venture capitalists, leveraging their fortunes for maximum strategic impact. Because of the anonymity ..charitable organizations provided, the full scope of these efforts was largely invisible to the public..”
”..their war spread from “beachheads” in academia and law to corporate front groups purporting to represent public opinion..they hired the smartest and slickest marketers money could buy..skilled at popularizing the agenda of wealthy backers by “framing” their issues in more broadly appealing terms.
”They exercised their power fro the shadows, meeting in secret, hiding their money trails, and paying others to front for them. The dark money groups masquerading as “social welfare” organizations during the Obama era were..the latest iteration of a privately funded, nonprofit ideological war that had begun forty years earlier.”
Mayer: “Mike Lofgren, a Republican who spent thirty years observing how wealthy interests gamed the policy-making apparatus in Washington..decried what he called the “secession” of the rich in which they “disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its wellbeing except as a lace to extract loot.”
[ Mike Lofgren: “Revolt of the Rich”; American Conservative; August 27, 2012 ]
Mayer: “The Republican National Committee..assess[ed]..its failings. In an unusually candid and self-critical public exegesis, it found..out-of-control spending by outsiders was overwhelming the candidates, giving rich donors too much influence. ”The current campaign finance environment has led to a handful of friends and allied groups dominating our side’s efforts. this is not healthy. A lot of centralized authority in the hands of a few people at these outside organizations is dangerous for our Party..”
Mayer: Charles Koch’s “grand strategist” admitted “..free-market conservatives had lost the all-important “middle third.”
This segment..tended to believe..liberals cared more about ordinary people like themselves. In contrast..”big business they see as very suspicious…They’re greedy. they don’t care about the underprivileged…Fink readily conceded..these critics weren’t wrong..”….
”..the government-slashing agenda of the Koch network was a problem for these voters. Fink acknowledged,”We want to decrease regulations. Why? It’s because we can make more profit, okay? Yeah, and cut government spending so we don’t have to pay so much taxes.”
Mayer: “A breakthrough..was the creation of some two dozen privately funded academic centers, the flagship of which was the Mercatus Center at George Mason University..private academic centers within colleges and universities were ideal devices by which rich conservatives could replace the faculty’s views with their own. ”Money talks loudly on college campuses”..the report profiled the trailblazing record of John Allison..former Cato Institute chairman, who had overseen grants to sixty-three colleges..All of these programs were required to teach his favorite philosopher, the celebrator of self-interest Ayn Rand.”….
”Students complained..the Koch influence was nefarious and omnipresent..”We learned..Keynes was bad, the free-market was better..sweatshop labor wasn’t so bad..the hands-off regulations in China were better than those of the U.S.”
…The Kochs were also directing millions of dollars in online education, and into teaching high school students, through a nonprofit..the Young Entrepreneurs Academy…which taught students..Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women wasn’t discriminatory, and the government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession.””
Mayer: “The [2014] election was as big a victory for ultrarich conservative donors as it was for the winning Republican candidates..Four years into the “Citizens United” era, the numbers were more numbing than shocking The only suspense..was the factor by which spending had multiplied..”We have reached a tipping point where mega donors completely dominate the landscape.”..
”Let’s call the system that “Citizens United” and other rulings and laws have created what it is: an oligarchy..The system is controlled by a handful of ultra-wealthy people, most of whom got rich from the system and who will get richer from the system.”
Mayer: “By 2015, [the Koch’s] antigovernment lead was followed by much of Congress. Addressing global warming was out of the question. Although economic inequality had reached record levels, raising taxes on the runaway rich and closing special loopholes that. advantaged only them were also nonstarters. Funding basic public services like the repair of America’s crumbling infrastructure was als seemingly beyond reach. A majority of the public supported an expansion of the social safety net. but leaders in both parties nevertheless embraced austerity measures popular with the affluent. Even though Americans overwhelmingly opposed cuts in Social Security..the Beltway consensus was that to save the program, it needed to be shrunk.” o
With Justice For All 