The Koch Brothers aren't Republicans. They're Libertarians; corporate Libertarians. They've held these highly impractical right-wing corporate beliefs for quite some time and used their power in a more effective way for the past few decades. They have poured tens of millions of dollars into right-wing think tanks and policy organizations. The Republicans took the Trojan Horse bait. They gobbled up the policy papers, the money, the experts. And now they will reap the results. The GOP is splitting into increasingly smaller, angrier, incompatible factions. It's not an accident.
The Washington Republican establishment thought it could keep outsmarting the goobers, i.e. their base. They could run on opposing gay marriage, unending war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and hatred of all things federal government (accept for the armed forces). They thought they could continue to put up an contradictory, hypocritical policy without anyone calling them out. In the 1980s and 1990s, they successfully co-opted conservative Christians, running circles around Ralph Reed and the senile Moral Majority obsessed with strange gays lurking by their windows. But Pat Robertson is a child in comparison to Koch.
The Koch Brothers needed a party and even a half-divided Republican party gives them more power than a completely invisible Libertarian party. For years they tried to run Libertarian candidates. And the only place they had any consistent success was with fringe, backwater parts of the country. The duo began feeding the Republicans experts, policy wonks, low-level candidates. Within the next generation they will become a localized, radicalized faction of elderly separatists. Incapable of governing, the grand ol' party will play the role of obstruction and rancor. They will to continue to prod their shriveling members back to polling booths and on to Fox News. As a result, the Republican party is finished.
The Washington Republican establishment thought it could keep outsmarting the goobers, i.e. their base. They could run on opposing gay marriage, unending war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and hatred of all things federal government (accept for the armed forces). They thought they could continue to put up an contradictory, hypocritical policy without anyone calling them out. In the 1980s and 1990s, they successfully co-opted conservative Christians, running circles around Ralph Reed and the senile Moral Majority obsessed with strange gays lurking by their windows. But Pat Robertson is a child in comparison to Koch.
The Koch Brothers needed a party and even a half-divided Republican party gives them more power than a completely invisible Libertarian party. For years they tried to run Libertarian candidates. And the only place they had any consistent success was with fringe, backwater parts of the country. The duo began feeding the Republicans experts, policy wonks, low-level candidates. Within the next generation they will become a localized, radicalized faction of elderly separatists. Incapable of governing, the grand ol' party will play the role of obstruction and rancor. They will to continue to prod their shriveling members back to polling booths and on to Fox News. As a result, the Republican party is finished.
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