6 ms·

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasi

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasizing the partisan tug-o-war stuff, which looks less promising now than it did during (for example) the early days of the Tea Party, and focusing on the less fought-over parts. It's a reasonable approach if he wants to get things done, but not the about-face the headline suggests.

sangnoir 6y ago
I'm not sure if I'm being overly cynical - but isn't this just a tactic to consolidate the gains he managed to win by discouraging the other side from using his methods? Similar to how challengers decry bureaucracy, but once they become incumbents, wield it as a cudgel to swat down upstarts.
- bredren 6y ago
  We saw this in the Portland mayoral race. The only on-ballot challenger to the incumbent used political tactics that overcame what would normally be exclusionary credentials. It was so successful, I was taken aback by it. At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned. Hearing that sent a chill down my spine and I voted against this person.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. When you have a two-party system, you get binary outcomes - ie. divisiveness. It doesn't even make sense to expect something else.
    - rualca 6y ago
      > When you have a two-party system, you get binary outcomes - ie. divisiveness. The two-party system problem seems to be a consequence of "first-past-the-post" voting. For example, some posters in reddit's /r/conservative were very insistent in attacking libertarian voters, pinning on them the responsibility of Trump's election loss. Their rationale was that they felt libertarian voters threw their vote away by voting on a candidate who had no chances of winning, thus robbing their candidate of support that they felt he would otherwise have if no libertarian candidate ran for president. Consequently, they argued that the only rational approach to the elections would be if all like-minded voters concentrated their vote on not-so-good-but-popular somewhat like-minded candidate so that they could have at least a chance of electing someone who, even though might not be the best candidate in the voter's opinion, was closer to support some of their views.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      The US has both party ideology and policy issues. To be constructive, both parties can likely agree on some major policy issues. Examples are: - what to do with the college student debt trap - the wall (all countries must have border control) - obesity epidemic (is it HFCS-related?) - disintegration of the nuclear family - Marxist rioting. Regarding divisiveness, Obama was not only one of the least productive presidents in US history, his entire strategy was divisiveness - his previous job was "community organizer", which means "divide local communities." You can trace the current leftist racial intersectionalism to his campaign. An example of CNN supporting leftist divisiveness is this screed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/opinions/trump-tore-my-family-apart-eldredge/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/opinions/trump-tore-my-family...
    - ponker 6y ago
      The divisiveness is a consequence of the primary system, not the two-party system. The primary system is very new, only here since 1972, but the fact is that 1) the power to nominate candidates should have never been handed to the voters, and 2) now that it has been, it is impossible to revoke. The "strategic" aspect of nominating a candidate closer to the center, to capture as much of the political spectrum as possible, is impossible to coordinate with individual voters but very easy to execute by party insiders. Without primaries, Barack Obama would have never been President but Donald Trump wouldn't have been either.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    > At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. > The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned. Now I'm currently, what sort of power do you hold that would cause a politician to speak to you in private and not try and pass the same indirection and lies they would most constituents?
    - ericbarrett 6y ago
      I donated a three-figure amount to a US Senator’s re-election campaign, and received a personal thank-you phone call from them several months later. It was an open-ended conversation and I would have had the same opportunity OP described had I not been so flabbergasted.
    - bredren 6y ago
      I hold no special power they could likely have been aware of. I got an sms message from her campaign asking if they could count on my vote. I replied “stop” to all political SMS except this one. The worker and I shared a few exchanges about specific rhetoric their candidate had used. I let them know I had voted for the candidate during the primary but would not in the general. The person offered me a 10 minute call with the candidate, and I took it. I do not know why the candidate would say this. Possibly they calculated I was unlikely to repeat this, or if I did it would not break through to affect votes (it was very late in the game). Oregon is a two party consent call recording state, perhaps they calculated I was not recording or would not share it if I was. My conclusion is that like Donald Trump, this person is a narcissist. It goes with the rhetoric and even double speak. But I am very curious about their campaign manager. I have considered asking them for a phone call to discuss the candidates campaign, and to try and sort out what the manager had done versus what came from the candidate.
      - ElijahLynn 6y ago
        > In Oregon it is legal to record telephone conversations with the consent of at least one party, but recording in-person conversations requires the consent of all parties except for in certain circumstances, such as when all parties reasonably should have known they were being recorded. Illegal recording is a misdemeanor that can also give rise to civil damages. OR Rev Stat § 165.540 (definition & penalty), § 133.739 (civil damages) source: https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations/#oregon https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call...
  - pjc50 6y ago
    For those of us following along from outside Portland, who are you referring to?
    - NobodyNada 6y ago
      (Presumably) Sarah Iannarone, who declared herself "the Antifa mayor" during her campaign. She lost to incumbent Ted Wheeler.
      - bredren 6y ago
        This is correct. I was trying to separate the individuals from my anecdote on the upstream point. Also, not draw in daemons for these keywords.
  - feteru 6y ago
    What were the political tactics used? I'm not familiar with the race and didn't see anything on my first search. That's some political-drama-level honesty from the candidate.
- zests 6y ago
  Both sides -- the ones that arise naturally from winner takes all voting systems -- are stuck. If they are less partisan than the opposing side, they risk losing ground. If current partisanness trends continue progress is stopped and potential sympathetic voters are turned off of your platform. There will be winners who can navigate the hyperpartisan environment (or even thrive in the environment) and losers who cannot or who do not have enough of a grasp of the situation to make the correct decision. An outside observer can determine how fast two bodies are moving away from each other but, from the perspective of the moving body, it can be a lot less clear who is moving and what the relative speeds are.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  Precisely. He got his tax cut; his pendulum swung so far to his side that Joe Biden is seen as a liberal candidate. He's advocating for a comfy middle ground cuz he's won the war and now wants peace and quiet
  - jfengel 6y ago
    He also has a Supreme Court that will give him everything he wants for the rest of his life, and considerably following.
qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
>In July 2015 Charles Koch and his brother were praised by President Obama and Anthony Van Jones for their bipartisan efforts to reform the criminal justice system.[67][68] For roughly a decade Koch has been advocating for several reforms within the prison system, including the reduction of recidivist criminals, easing the employment process for rehabilitated persons, and the defense of private property from asset forfeiture.[68][69] Aligning with groups such as the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Coalition for Public Safety, and the MacArthur Foundation, Koch believes the current system has unfairly targeted low-income and minority communities all while wasting substantial government resources.[68][70] >In February 2016, Koch penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post, where he said he agreed with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about the unfairness of corporate welfare and mass incarceration in the United States.[71] >In June 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation announced the foundation of anti-war think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cosponsored by George Soros' Open Society Foundation.[72] He is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented research think tank at George Mason University.[73] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch
- LanceH 6y ago
  A demon, indeed.
- webmaven 6y ago
  Koch is an honest libertarian, so his Deregulate All The Things efforts are accompanied by things like this. But. If you look at where he's been putting his money into supporting candidates, they are overwhelmingly Republicans that align with the former to the exclusion of nearly everything else. It would have been very VERY easy for Koch to have got bipartisan support for serious criminal justice reform if he had wanted to, but that would have used up political capital (Republicans generally prefer to be the 'tough on crime' candidate) he otherwise used to support his economic interests instead. That's the main problem I have with libertarians: They lend their wholehearted and deep pocketed support to Republicans on business issues and opposing 'big government', but fail to call them out on social issues (you know, the whole 'equality before the law' thing), and practically never lend equivalent support to Democrats where they would be aligned, just lip-service. It's hypocritical. Having to date focused largely on feathering his nest, he now wants to put a bit of 'compassionate conservatism' shine on his image and legacy. I'm not inclined to let him gloss over the awful things he's accomplished.

sangnoir 6y ago

I'm not sure if I'm being overly cynical - but isn't this just a tactic to consolidate the gains he managed to win by discouraging the other side from using his methods? Similar to how challengers decry bureaucracy, but once they become incumbents, wield it as a cudgel to swat down upstarts.

bredren 6y ago
We saw this in the Portland mayoral race. The only on-ballot challenger to the incumbent used political tactics that overcame what would normally be exclusionary credentials. It was so successful, I was taken aback by it. At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned. Hearing that sent a chill down my spine and I voted against this person.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. When you have a two-party system, you get binary outcomes - ie. divisiveness. It doesn't even make sense to expect something else.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > When you have a two-party system, you get binary outcomes - ie. divisiveness. The two-party system problem seems to be a consequence of "first-past-the-post" voting. For example, some posters in reddit's /r/conservative were very insistent in attacking libertarian voters, pinning on them the responsibility of Trump's election loss. Their rationale was that they felt libertarian voters threw their vote away by voting on a candidate who had no chances of winning, thus robbing their candidate of support that they felt he would otherwise have if no libertarian candidate ran for president. Consequently, they argued that the only rational approach to the elections would be if all like-minded voters concentrated their vote on not-so-good-but-popular somewhat like-minded candidate so that they could have at least a chance of electing someone who, even though might not be the best candidate in the voter's opinion, was closer to support some of their views.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    The US has both party ideology and policy issues. To be constructive, both parties can likely agree on some major policy issues. Examples are: - what to do with the college student debt trap - the wall (all countries must have border control) - obesity epidemic (is it HFCS-related?) - disintegration of the nuclear family - Marxist rioting. Regarding divisiveness, Obama was not only one of the least productive presidents in US history, his entire strategy was divisiveness - his previous job was "community organizer", which means "divide local communities." You can trace the current leftist racial intersectionalism to his campaign. An example of CNN supporting leftist divisiveness is this screed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/opinions/trump-tore-my-family-apart-eldredge/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/opinions/trump-tore-my-family...
  - ponker 6y ago
    The divisiveness is a consequence of the primary system, not the two-party system. The primary system is very new, only here since 1972, but the fact is that 1) the power to nominate candidates should have never been handed to the voters, and 2) now that it has been, it is impossible to revoke. The "strategic" aspect of nominating a candidate closer to the center, to capture as much of the political spectrum as possible, is impossible to coordinate with individual voters but very easy to execute by party insiders. Without primaries, Barack Obama would have never been President but Donald Trump wouldn't have been either.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  > At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric. > The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned. Now I'm currently, what sort of power do you hold that would cause a politician to speak to you in private and not try and pass the same indirection and lies they would most constituents?
  - ericbarrett 6y ago
    I donated a three-figure amount to a US Senator’s re-election campaign, and received a personal thank-you phone call from them several months later. It was an open-ended conversation and I would have had the same opportunity OP described had I not been so flabbergasted.
  - bredren 6y ago
    I hold no special power they could likely have been aware of. I got an sms message from her campaign asking if they could count on my vote. I replied “stop” to all political SMS except this one. The worker and I shared a few exchanges about specific rhetoric their candidate had used. I let them know I had voted for the candidate during the primary but would not in the general. The person offered me a 10 minute call with the candidate, and I took it. I do not know why the candidate would say this. Possibly they calculated I was unlikely to repeat this, or if I did it would not break through to affect votes (it was very late in the game). Oregon is a two party consent call recording state, perhaps they calculated I was not recording or would not share it if I was. My conclusion is that like Donald Trump, this person is a narcissist. It goes with the rhetoric and even double speak. But I am very curious about their campaign manager. I have considered asking them for a phone call to discuss the candidates campaign, and to try and sort out what the manager had done versus what came from the candidate.
    - ElijahLynn 6y ago
      > In Oregon it is legal to record telephone conversations with the consent of at least one party, but recording in-person conversations requires the consent of all parties except for in certain circumstances, such as when all parties reasonably should have known they were being recorded. Illegal recording is a misdemeanor that can also give rise to civil damages. OR Rev Stat § 165.540 (definition & penalty), § 133.739 (civil damages) source: https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations/#oregon https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call...
- pjc50 6y ago
  For those of us following along from outside Portland, who are you referring to?
  - NobodyNada 6y ago
    (Presumably) Sarah Iannarone, who declared herself "the Antifa mayor" during her campaign. She lost to incumbent Ted Wheeler.
    - bredren 6y ago
      This is correct. I was trying to separate the individuals from my anecdote on the upstream point. Also, not draw in daemons for these keywords.
- feteru 6y ago
  What were the political tactics used? I'm not familiar with the race and didn't see anything on my first search. That's some political-drama-level honesty from the candidate.
zests 6y ago
Both sides -- the ones that arise naturally from winner takes all voting systems -- are stuck. If they are less partisan than the opposing side, they risk losing ground. If current partisanness trends continue progress is stopped and potential sympathetic voters are turned off of your platform. There will be winners who can navigate the hyperpartisan environment (or even thrive in the environment) and losers who cannot or who do not have enough of a grasp of the situation to make the correct decision. An outside observer can determine how fast two bodies are moving away from each other but, from the perspective of the moving body, it can be a lot less clear who is moving and what the relative speeds are.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
Precisely. He got his tax cut; his pendulum swung so far to his side that Joe Biden is seen as a liberal candidate. He's advocating for a comfy middle ground cuz he's won the war and now wants peace and quiet
- jfengel 6y ago
  He also has a Supreme Court that will give him everything he wants for the rest of his life, and considerably following.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago

>In July 2015 Charles Koch and his brother were praised by President Obama and Anthony Van Jones for their bipartisan efforts to reform the criminal justice system.[67][68] For roughly a decade Koch has been advocating for several reforms within the prison system, including the reduction of recidivist criminals, easing the employment process for rehabilitated persons, and the defense of private property from asset forfeiture.[68][69] Aligning with groups such as the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Coalition for Public Safety, and the MacArthur Foundation, Koch believes the current system has unfairly targeted low-income and minority communities all while wasting substantial government resources.[68][70] >In February 2016, Koch penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post, where he said he agreed with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about the unfairness of corporate welfare and mass incarceration in the United States.[71] >In June 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation announced the foundation of anti-war think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cosponsored by George Soros' Open Society Foundation.[72] He is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented research think tank at George Mason University.[73] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch

LanceH 6y ago
A demon, indeed.
webmaven 6y ago
Koch is an honest libertarian, so his Deregulate All The Things efforts are accompanied by things like this. But. If you look at where he's been putting his money into supporting candidates, they are overwhelmingly Republicans that align with the former to the exclusion of nearly everything else. It would have been very VERY easy for Koch to have got bipartisan support for serious criminal justice reform if he had wanted to, but that would have used up political capital (Republicans generally prefer to be the 'tough on crime' candidate) he otherwise used to support his economic interests instead. That's the main problem I have with libertarians: They lend their wholehearted and deep pocketed support to Republicans on business issues and opposing 'big government', but fail to call them out on social issues (you know, the whole 'equality before the law' thing), and practically never lend equivalent support to Democrats where they would be aligned, just lip-service. It's hypocritical. Having to date focused largely on feathering his nest, he now wants to put a bit of 'compassionate conservatism' shine on his image and legacy. I'm not inclined to let him gloss over the awful things he's accomplished.