MEGARICH FAMILIES

[An important factor in Donald Trump’s Rise] “ . . . has been the post-Citizens United elevation of megarich donors like the Koch brothers and Las Vegas’s Sheldon Adelson to the level of virtual party king-makers. The Kochs downplay the extent of their political spending, but whether it’s $250 million or much more than that, it’s an enormous sum, and they and Adelson and the others exist almost as a third political party.”

“When one family and its allies control that much money, and those running want it spent supporting them (although Trump has matched them), what candidate is going to take a position counter to that family and the network of which it is a part? The Kochs are known, for example, to be implacably opposed to any recognition that man-made climate change is a real danger. So no Republican candidate will buck that. This extends, of course, to practically the whole of Capitol Hill. Not long ago, I talked with Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, who explained how the Republicans’ fear of facing a Koch-financed primary from the right, should they cast a suspicious vote on climate change, prevented them from acknowledging the scientific facts. And what percentage of them, I asked, do you think really accept those facts deep down? ‘Oh,’ Franken said, ‘Ninety.’ He explained that in committee hearings, for example, witnesses from the Department of Energy come to discuss the department’s renewable energy strategy, ‘and none of them challenge the need for this stuff.’

Tomasky, “The Dangerous Election,” in the New York Review, March 24, 2016, pp: 4-6.