Imagine being so rich that you could buy anything. Although they don’t own a single Gucci belt, this weekend, the billionaire conservative Koch brothers gathered their likeminded cohorts together in a publicly secret retreat to announce their plans to keep America’s education system on layaway and purchase our entire system of government.
Surrounded by 500 donors who each pledged $100,000 annually to Koch-related causes, Charles and David Koch, the conservative love children of Thanos and Sarah Palin, declared that they would spend between $300 million and $400 million to “shape” the 2018 midterm according to the Associated Press, who agreed not to photograph or name the donors because ... something, something, “journalistic integrity,” yada yada “freedom of the press.”
The Koch group condemned the “divisiveness” of the Trump administration, according to the Washington Post, despite the fact that much of the money is expected to go towards to efforts that benefit Republican candidates who have turned a blind eye to Donald Trump’s idiotic policies and blatant racism at every turn.
Although there is no evidence that the Koch brothers are white supremacists, their plan to fund and support the party headed by a bigot that chooses to ignore white supremacy for the sake of furthering their personal political agenda can only be called ... well ... white supremacy.
The plan is indicative of the overall attitude that elected the man responsible for what Koch operatives described as a “lack of leadership,” which is akin to Batman convening the Super Friends in the Batcave to announce their financial support for the Joker’s crimefighting plan. (“Akin” means “exactly like,” right?)
82-year-old Charles Koch explained that his younger brother David would be reducing his role in the siblings’ vast network of political and policy organizations that seek to privatize health care, outlaw abortion, lower corporate taxes, ease government regulations and legalize baby-eating (unconfirmed).
“I am not getting weak in the knees. ... Truly I am not,” Charles Koch told the group that included politicians, donors and people who just came for the free shrimp cocktail, adding: “We’re just getting started.”
The brothers, who are tied at No. 8 on Forbes’ ranking of the richest men in the world, also divulged that they would start publicly posting the millions of dollars their network of charities gave to colleges and universities to promote their conservative “free market” agenda heralded by white men over 6 feet tall and Anne Coulter.
Last year, the brothers gave $90 million to more than 300 college campuses to further projects like the white supremacist professor at Florida Atlantic University or the K-12 social studies curriculum that teaches kids that slave owners shouldn’t be considered racists.
The rebranded Koch brothers are currently funding organizations like Americans for Prosperity, who quietly funnel “dark money” to candidates while not coincidentally, funding efforts to stifle laws that require groups to publicly disclose political donations. Americans for Prosperity has already committed to spending seven figures in their effort to ensure the confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
While some may say that the billionaires’ money subverts the intention of a true democracy and changes it to an oligarchy, the members of the press snacking on jumbo shrimp cocktail dipped in caviar at the luxurious summit of billionaires in the mountains of Colorado Springs would assure us that the Koch brothers’ goals are not nefarious.
Sure, Brett Kavanaugh has excused secret political contributions by explaining that money is the “absolutely” equivalent to free speech. Sure, Kavanaugh has written that a president should be free from “time-consuming and distracting” lawsuits and investigations. And I know you’re thinking: “But Supreme Court nominees are confirmed by the Senate. Are the Koch Brothers planning to buy Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court?”
Of course not. Stop asking all those questions. What’s important is that his name is Brett.
And if rich, white men can’t trust a guy named Brett, what has this world come to?