Jane Mayer’s Dark Money is the carefully-researched, well-written story of how the American “conservative movement” and the Republican Party became little more than a well-financed storefront operation and sales force for plutocracy, sponsoring and placing political figures that are just sock-puppets for wealthy donors who dictate their policies. This is a political force that uses racism, misogyny, nativist xenophobia, media manipulation and sheer human gullibility, along with heaps of cash and other tools, to accomplish its ends. It is the story of how a few hundred extremely wealthy individuals and families, in a determined effort to avoid taxation and evade government prosecution of their own often financially-corrupt and polluting business enterprises, are engaged in a decades-long ongoing coup d’etat as much against the American people as against our government.
The billionaires involved—principally but by no means exclusively the brothers Charles and David Koch; Richard Mellon Scaife; John M. Olin and the Bradley brothers—were raised within families of astounding wealth and privilege. They inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, plus businesses that produced yet more income. They also appear to have disliked and feared two things: taxation that would mitigate and reduce their family wealth; and being called legally to account for the public health, environmental and financial violations of their enterprises. They turned those fears into an ideology whose basic premise was: we should be able to do whatever we want, and any restriction on that is not only unjustified but un-American. They equated their personal interests and preferences with the good of the nation, and they funded a movement to raise their own self-interest to the status of a political crusade and an ideological war of principle. They lied to themselves and everyone else. As Thomas Frank wrote in What’s the Matter With Kansas, “Libertarianism is supposed to be all about principle, but what it is really about is political expedience. It is basically a corporate front, masked as a philosophy” (quoted from Dark Money, p. 123).
A primary vehicle for putting the plutocratic campaign into practice was an ingenious tax dodge. It involved creating foundations and funneling money through nonprofit organizations (usually of the donors’ own creation) in such a way that the funds were tax-deductible. So, in lieu of paying more taxes, they used the money instead on a form of fake "philanthropy", claiming a social benefit for what were really investments in their own self-interest--very affordable investments with an enormous payoff. Basically, they bought staff to come up with "research” and “studies" that justified and promoted a disguised plutocracy; and followed that up with “policy” shops that would develop and advocate for specific legal and judiciary measures that would enshrine their interests into law. Finally, they created and funded staged “citizens’ groups” (like the Tea Party) that would give their campaign an appearance of popular support. They also learned that they could get the support of some of the victims of these policies by giving them something non-financial that they wanted, whether that was support for their religious preferences, sanction for their hatreds or whatever.
The Kochs have tried to obscure their influence and that of their billionaire donor network, by hiding behind a web of "nonprofit" organizations with innocuous names, seeming to represent popular interests but actually funded and controlled by the Kochs and their fellow plutocrats. They even have a central donation organization, the "DonorsTrust", set up to obscure further the identities of the donors while funneling money to the campaign.
The Kochs seem to have been good at identifying talent who could carry out their plans without revealing their direct involvement. The “conservative movement” is just another growth industry to which many people attached their careers when it became clear that the billionaires calling the shots would spend lavishly on it. The conservative publication National Review and the careers of many professional conservative journalists and scholars benefited greatly from this industry. The donors put literally billions of dollars into this effort over decades, which enabled them to buy an awful lot of conservatism.
I enjoyed the many stories, anecdotes, incidents and quotes through which Mayer tells her tale. The fact that it is done in both journalistic and scholarly style, with many, many named people saying very telling things, made it a researcher’s delight. My own copy is filled with underlined passages and bookmarked pages.
This is an eminently quotable book, with extensive end-note references. For instance, Steve Clemons, formerly an analyst at the Nixon Center, is quoted on page 82 saying: “Funders increasingly expect policy achievements that contribute to their bottom line….We’ve become money launderers for monies that have real specific policy agendas behind them.” On the Citizens United decision, Mayer writes on page 248 that: “…the Kochs were part of a national explosion of dark money. In 2006, only 2 percent of ‘outside’ political spending came from ‘social welfare’ groups that hid their donors. In 2010, the number rose to 40 percent, masking hundreds of millions of dollars.” And on page 249, there is a note about a meeting in April of 2010 in Karl Rove’s living room at his house in Northeast Washington, DC. Mayer quotes Kenneth Vogel, from his book Big Money, describing the meeting as “the birthplace of a new Republican Party—one steered by just a handful of unelected operatives who answered only to the richest activists who funded them.” Perhaps my favorite quote in the book is from Karl Rove who, right after the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, met with Republican donors at the Dallas Petroleum Club, to plot out how best to take advantage of the decision. Rove told the gathering: “People call us a vast right-wing conspiracy, but we’re really a half-assed right-wing conspiracy. Now…..it is time to get serious.” (p. 242)
Jane Mayer has done a service to us all with this remarkable book. Get it, read it and tell everyone you know about it.
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Popular Highlights in this book
Between 1981 and 1986, the top income tax rate was cut from 70 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, taxes on the bottom four-fifths of earners rose. Economic inequality, which had flatlined, began to climb.Highlighted by 2,606 Kindle readers- The glue that bound them together, however, was antipathy toward government regulation and taxation, particularly as it impinged on their own accumulation of wealth.Highlighted by 2,240 Kindle readers
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About the author
The Depressing Truth About Greed and Coverup
Excellent book, though reading about such rampant corruption, manipulation, and greed within our "democratic" society is a bit depressing. That said, Mayer does an outstanding job of investigatory reporting!-Bill Brier
Top reviews from other countries
TomR
A must read to see how the to 1% rich cut down their tax bills at the 99% expense.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2023Arjun
Un libro que cambia tu visión de la política estadounidense
Reviewed in Spain on August 2, 2022Erik Star
A great book answering many questions of how such things are ...
Reviewed in Canada on August 5, 2018
