This is actually not a bad thing — in fact, it's a good insurance policy against a Harris win
/
Where the Koch Network Is Putting Their Money—Anywhere But Trump
When some of the biggest donors to conservative causes made explicit their electoral opposition to a second Trump term way back in February of 2023, it came as something of a shock to the Republican orbit. After all, the powerful network organized under the auspices of billionaire industrialist Charles Koch had officially remained neutral in Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, a sign of how uncomfortable his allies were with a candidate whose positions were so far afoul from their own on so many issues.
But by the time the network gathered at the start of 2023, their position on Trump was not really a point of discussion. The deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was finally a step too far. The chief of the network’s main political arm, Americans For Prosperity, told her patrons that they were ready to back an alternative Republican who showed promise of winning. The group ultimately plowed more than $32 million into former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and another $10 million in broader anti-Trump efforts before throwing in the towel. The hopes of reclaiming the party from this gatecrasher were dashed and they had to live with Trump as their standard bearer.
It’s been six months since Haley ended her bid, and just over six weeks since Biden followed suit. Vice President Kamala Harris has scrambled the electoral map, and might look like more of a threat than Biden on some key Koch issues. So where does that lead Koch World and their deep pockets?
Not far from where they’ve been all along—doing their best to help Republicans not named Trump. Despite some pleas from Trump apologists who still pony up cash to the organizations operating under the Koch umbrella, the leadership remains unbending in their decision to stay out of the presidential race altogether.
Instead, Koch-linked strategists say their main goal is to be a check against unified Democratic control of Washington. To them, a progressive sweep of D.C. is the biggest threat this fall, and to that end, staff and volunteers have already knocked on more than five million doors to help their Senate prospects, especially those in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Montana.
At the House level, the Koch network—and those who take their cues from it—are focused on about two dozen races, many of them in deep-blue states like California and New York, where voters have shown a willingness to split their tickets. There are currently 17 Republicans from districts Biden won in 2020 and five Democrats from districts where Trump won. With Republicans holding a razor-thin majority, these races are likely to see some of the highest spending in some of the most expensive media markets.
The country can probably survive a Que Mala presidency if Republicans control the House and the Senate and — a big if * — the Republicans actually act as a bloc, and stymie her judicial appointments, Democrat inspired laws and regulations, and, in general, leave her to wallow alone in the White House, dreaming of school buses and coconuts.
Money’s fungible, and if Koch and his fellow billionaires want to spend theirs on the lower races (so to speak), I say go for it — that’s more money freed up to reelect Trump.
* From Instapundit:
MARK STEYN: The Uniparty Turns Literal.
How’s it going over on the Republican side? Well, former president George W Bush has announced he won’t be endorsing anyone in this election. On the other hand, over two hundred Bush, McCain and Romney staffers have declared they’re voting for Kamala. I’m not sure I’ve heard of any of them, but, as you know, the McCain and Romney campaigns remain bywords for hugely successful political operations, so no doubt many of those hundreds of staffers helped craft what are widely acknowledged to be two of the most impressive concession speeches in American history.
* * * * * * * *
I thought Cheney was an homme sérieux. But, in the end, he wasn’t. The Bush years have to be accounted a terrible failure, in which the leadership of the then dominant superpower was unable to grasp the simplest of truths — not least about the need for strategic clarity. Under Cheney, America launched wars with no war aims, in which it deluded itself that “smart bombs” counted for more than will. Meanwhile, on the home front, the rate of Muslim immigration to America doubled …because it was more important to show the world how nice we are than to consider the cultural consequences of demographic transformation. So the west spent twenty years fighting over the most barren and worthless sod on the planet, while surrendering Malmö and Marseille, Rotterdam and Nottingham, and Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. This is what happens when you have a political class almost entirely disconnected from the rhythms of real life in real countries.
So Trump has performed a great service in driving the likes of Cheney to vote Kamala. The feeble charade of TweedleDem vs TweedleRep is designed to obscure the central fact of end-stage western “democracy” — that, on anything that really matters, nothing can be permitted to change. Thus, having Dick Cheney and Ilhan Omar formally on the same team is very helpful. Trump has driven the “respectable” political class to make the Uniparty literal, and its consolidation has freed up space for an actual second party.
