Ron Nehring Former chairman, California Republican Party :
Why Have You Heard of the Koch Brothers?
During the 1990’s I worked in Washington, DC for a number of well-respected conservative movement groups. Over the course of ten years I learned about some of the major contributors who made the modern conservative movement, launched in the 1970’s, possible. This included industry leaders like Henry Salvatori, William E. Simon, and Dr. Robert H. Krieble who made groups like the Heritage Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and Free Congress Foundation possible.
I learned of these leaders mainly through recognition given to them by the groups they supported - conference rooms, lobbies, buildings, and other facilities were named after these generous donors who chose to contribute to a cause.
Fast-forward to today, and we witness a ceaseless campaign by the left to identify, publicize, and demonize major contributors to Republican and conservative causes. Donors like Sheldon Adelson and Charles and David Koch have become well known to millions of Americans not because of any self-aggrandizing need for recognition, but rather as a result of a deliberate campaign by the organized left.
It is a sign of how the tactics employed by the left have indeed become more polarizing and divisive over the last decade.
Here’s why they do it.
If the secular left could have saints, the patron saint of modern leftist organizing would be Saul Alinsky, the 1970’s organizer who authored “Rules for Radicals,” a handbook for, as the title suggests, radical organizers to advance their cause.
In his book, Alinsky advises radicals to take complex issues and personalize them by focusing all efforts on a single individual, like an elected official or a corporate CEO. Demonize that person, destroy their reputation and personal life, make them controversial, radioactive, and continually focus all efforts on destroying the target until he caves.
In the course of such a campaign, the radicals attempt to make it impossible for the target to operate until he accedes to their demands. More importantly, they signal other would-be opponents of how miserable their lives can be made if they stand in the way.
This tactic is now being applied to major Republican and conservative donors, and target numbers one and two are Charles and David Koch.
By their continued support of conservative groups, Mssrs. Koch and Koch have made clear their commitment to advancing free market public policies exceeds the left’s ability to annoy and interfere with their lives.
Yet, they are not who the left is attempting to influence.
The real target of the ongoing campaign against the Koch brothers are other, less prominent potential supporters of conservative causes. By smearing one group of donors, the leftists attempt to intimidate others into passivity. So you have an IPO coming up? Want to avoid being labeled as “controversial?” Then you better make sure you stay away from getting involved with anything political, like opposing us. This is the message the left is sending through their actions.
Ironically, some of the same people who regularly hyperventilate about protecting individual privacy have no problems with delving into the lives of conservative donors in the hopes of finding, and using, anything that can serve to further demonize and disparage them. Intimidating your opponents’ supporters into submission has become a normal and customary tactic of today’s left.