By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 19, 2024 ~

Tens of millions of Americans rise each morning and pray they are awakening from a bad dream about the President-elect’s plans to put a plethora of outrageously unfit people in charge of critical federal agencies that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we feed our children, our ability to obtain healthcare, social security for the elderly, response to disasters and so forth.

What few Americans understand is that this plan is very real, dead serious, and was hatched 44 years ago by two fossil fuel billionaire brothers – Charles and David Koch. The plan was publicly released as the Libertarian Platform when David Koch ran for Vice President of the United States in 1980. David Koch died in 2019, leaving his brother, Charles, who turned 89 this month, to relentlessly push to install the platform, notwithstanding that his past fossil fuel policies have played a key role in heating the earth to the point of no return, causing unprecedented wild fires and drought in New York City at this very moment – as well as hundreds of deaths from unprecedented flash flooding here in the U.S. and around the globe this year.

To understand the dangerous agenda behind Trump’s nominees, consider what was written in that 1980 Platform:

“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”

“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”

“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”

“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”

“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”

“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”

“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”

“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”

“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”

“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”

“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”

“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”

To quote Senator Bernie Sanders, “The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country.”

After decades of floundering on implementing their agenda, the Kochs finally realized that the key to moving the agenda forward was to first accomplish the stated goal of “the repeal of federal campaign finance laws” so that billionaire money could control who gets elected to public office. That was accomplished under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United in 2010, and its progeny, ushering in unlimited corporate and billionaire spending in elections. Americans have been losing ground to the dark Koch agenda ever since.

According to research at the Washington Post, megadonors plowed $2.5 billion into the current election cycle – twice the amount they contributed in the 2020 election cycle.

Americans got a peek at Charles Koch’s plans for the dystopian future of the U.S. during Trump’s first term in office. The campaign funding mechanism Koch used back then was known as Freedom Partners. In a document titled “Roadmap to Repeal: Removing Regulatory Barriers to Opportunity,” the Koch front group listed the laws and regulations it expected to be repealed in the first 100 days of his administration. And like a dutiful courtier, the Trump administration responded quickly. Repeal the Paris Climate Accord – done. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy – done. Gutting federal regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency – done. Appointing industry shills to run federal agencies – done.

In addition, Freedom Partners funneled its own staff into key jobs in the Trump administration to hasten the enactment of its agenda.

Charles Koch has spent the better part of his adult life planning his assault on the federal government and gradually implementing the components he needs to succeed. As we have previously written, those include the following:

Meeting secretly with big political donors twice a year to plot a coordinated strategy to put their chosen people in public office;

Meeting at his private club with a sitting Supreme Court justice who will then rule on key legislation that benefits his interests;

Funding an organization that then sluices money to the wife of the Supreme Court Justice;

Running a highly sophisticated voter registration database, data mining and get-out-the-vote operation called i360, in order to pack Congress with people who will pursue an antiregulatory agenda;

Installing dozens of its lawyers and operatives into the highest offices of the federal government;

Running a sprawling, opaque trading operation that could potentially be raising the prices of the fossil fuel products it sells via the futures market;

Funding a sprawling network of taxpayer-subsidized front groups to deny climate change and foment hate;

Providing funding to groups involved in sending a mob to attack the seat of the federal government on January 6, 2021;

Funding groups that use dark money and propaganda to put lifetime justices on the highest court and to promote legislation friendly to the fossil fuels conglomerate.

History will not be kind to those who downplay this threat or enable it through their silence.