Two-tiered system
by digby
Charles Koch dismissed claims that he has much political power as “ludicrous,” asking, “if I had all this power, why aren’t [the many things I would change] getting changed?”
His statement suggests that he lacks political power — but he and his brother have built and bankrolled a network of political organizations that rival the size of any political party.
The elder Koch made the argument in an exclusive interview with Washington Post national reporter Matea Gold, one of a small number of journalists invited to cover select portions of the brothers’ Freedom Partners conference for wealthy conservative donors and Republican presidential hopefuls this past weekend at the St. Regis Monarch Beach luxury resort in California.
Asked what he says to those “who believe you have too much influence,” Charles Koch told Gold, “wow, believe me, if I had too much, a lot of things would change. Just like the very things we’ve been talking about — this trend toward a two-tiered society and the trajectory we’re on that’s taking us there and criminal justice.”
This new line about the “two-tiered society” is as cynical as it gets coming from a man who’s worth 50 billion and wants to make sure he never has to give up one thin dime of it to another human unless he’s assured of something of greater value to him personally in return.
Ugh. This lugubrious new billionaire’s line is going to make me permanently nauseaus.
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