Make No Mistake: The Koch Brothers Are Helping Donald Trump @alternet

Make No Mistake: The Koch Brothers Are Helping Donald Trump @alternet:

"They may not wish to get all of that Trumpy dirt—the calls to violence, the obvious racism and misogyny, the invitation to Russia for cyber­espionage on his own country—on their manicured hands, but they’re keen to turn out the voters needed to maintain Republican control of both houses of Congress. And there’s no way to turn out those voters without helping the quisling from Queens. People who live in Koch World have a sweet deal. If you’re a politician in the brothers’ orbit, you’re likely dependent on the ground operation of Americans for Prosperity—or other Koch astroturf outfits, such as Libre Initiative or 60 Plus—to get your voters to the polls. If you’re an employee of any of the multitudes of Koch­linked organizations that dot the Republican landscape, you’re dependent on them for your paycheck. And if you’re the Koch brothers, seeking to hold onto your congressional majority, you’re dependent on your people seeing to it that Republican voters are not so turned off by Donald Trump that they fail to show up to vote for your favored candidate for either the House or the Senate. So it should come as no surprise that we see House Speaker Paul Ryan, after all his tsk-­tsks about Donald Trump’s racism and bad language, brushing off the candidate’s apparent call to violence against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as “a joke gone bad.” Ryan has long been championed by Americans for Prosperity, and even received its Wisconsin chapter’s “Defending the American Dream” award as far back as 2008. (The award was presented to him by a young county executive named Scott Walker.) And it really shouldn’t be surprising that Indiana Governor Mike Pence agreed to sign on as Trump’s running mate—a move he surely would not have made had he received signals that the Kochs were opposed, given his frequent speaking gigs at the events of Koch-­linked organizations, and the love he’s received from Americans for Prosperity for his tax­-cutting policies."