Americans For Prosperity Comes For Vermont Voters — Part II

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In Part One of this story, we detailed how the efforts of Americans for Prosperity seek to shove the pro-fossil fuel policies of Charles Koch down the throats of Vermont residents. That story was based on joint reporting by VtDigger and Grist. While it was primarily about Vermont, Grist went on to explore in detail the efforts Charles and David Koch have made to shape America according to their own philosophy, which glorifies fossil fuels.

Americans for Prosperity was founded in 2004 by Charles Koch and his brother David, who died in 2019. Together they amassed great wealth through Koch Industries, an oil refinery and pipeline conglomerate that has gobbled up many other companies since their father, Fred Koch, created the business in the 1930s.

The Koch Paterfamilias

Fred Koch had an idea for refining petroleum that was spurned by the US government and other oil companies, so he put it to use to provide fuels to the Russian and German military machines. The fact that millions died as a result was immaterial to Fred. He was a first-generation immigrant whose father moved to Texas from the Netherlands.

He never forgave the US for spurning his ideas and became a co-founder of the John Birch Society in 1958. The group was part of what many thought of as the lunatic fringe, as it battled integration and the liberation of women. Presumably, his sons were treated to daily anti-government diatribes by their father during their formative years. Now, today, the nutso ravings of Fred Koch are the bedrock of the MAGA effort to overthrow the Constitution.

For an excellent analysis of the rise of Koch power, readers are encouraged to read the in-depth article “The Making Of The Koichtopus” in the November 3, 2014 edition of Mother Jones. Suffice it to say that the Kochs were founders of the Tea Party movement that clamored for lower taxes, less government regulation, and more power for the individual states.

The war on deregulation is interesting, because while decrying federal regulations, the Kochs took advantage of one government regulation that encouraged refineries to accept the gunk coming from the Alberta tar sands. No one else in America could process the stuff except a small refinery in the Midwest. When even it found the business unprofitable, it put the refinery up for sale as a distressed asset and the Kochs swooped in and bought it.

That refinery became the basis of their empire, which means their wealth is based on the dirtiest, filthiest, most polluting source of oil known. And absent federal government support, it never would have happened.

Ushering In The Era Of Dark Money

As the Koch empire grew, Charles used his increasing political power to wrest concessions from Congress that altered the IRS code to allow special interest groups like Americans For Prosperity to operate in secret, thereby setting the stage for the dark money era. His fingerprints are all over the Federalist Society that counts six of the current members of the Supine Court among its distinguished alumni. USSC decisions like Citizens United are the result of Charles’ constant agitating in the shadows.

The court will shortly overturn a federal appeals court decision that found most of the tariffs imposed by the current administration were imposed illegally. When it does, there will be no restraints on the horrors the administration has in store. Amplifying the power of the president is one of the most cherished goals of Charles Koch and his minions.

The Koch fingerprints are also all over the hate-filled Project 2025, created by another Koch instrumentality — the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 is the distillation of all the hatred Fred Koch harbored for the federal government and marks Charles Koch as the most powerful person in America that almost no one has ever heard of. Thanks to Grist, he is now getting the notoriety he so richly deserves. Every sordid detail about the Koch influence is documented in Jane Mayer’s exquisite exposé Dark Money.

Assault On Climate Science

Grist says the Kochs have used their “wealth to remake the national GOP into the party of climate denial after government regulation of pollution and a push for renewables threatened their oil empire. In 2008, they began the ‘No Climate Tax Pledge,’ asking officials to vote against spending money to fight climate change without equivalent tax cuts. By 2013, 411 officials had signed, including a quarter of senators and a third of representatives, along with other leaders like US Attorney General Pam Bondi.”

Greenpeace has called the Kochs the “financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition,” partnering with and then outspending better known oil corporations like ExxonMobil. During the first Trump administration, they launched local campaigns through Americans for Prosperity to roll back vehicle emissions standards.

The Koch-funded networks have heavily influenced both Trump terms. In the first term, about 50 administration officials had ties to Koch networks, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Today, key figures like Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have worked closely with and donated large sums to both Americans for Prosperity and other Koch-affiliated groups, Grist reports.

The summer campaign in Vermont comes as the second Trump administration launches an unprecedented attack on the climate and clean energy policies that gained traction under the Biden administration. Along with deleting climate information and reports from federal websites, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy have spent six months deregulating fossil fuels and slashing clean energy projects.

Project 2025 calls for breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s premier climate science agency, calling it “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Trump’s 2026 budget proposal eliminates the agency’s research arm, which is responsible for helping the country adapt to climate change.

Friedrich Hayek To The Fore

For Ross Connolly, the head of Americans For Prosperity in New England, his lurch to the right came during college, when he read Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek. According to Wikipedia:

“The Road to Serfdom is a book by the Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek. In the book, Hayek ‘[warns] of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning.’

“He further argues that the abandonment of individualism and classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a dictator, and the serfdom of the individual. Hayek challenged the view, popular among British Marxists, that fascism (including Nazism) was a capitalist reaction against socialism. He argued that fascism, Nazism, and state-socialism had common roots in central economic planning and empowering the state over the individual.”

According to Mayer’s Dark Money, that book has also had a powerful influence on Charles Koch. The irony is that the policies of Americans For Prosperity in particular, and Charles Koch in general, will result in precisely the consequences predicted by Hayek — making serfs of us all, especially people of color and women, who in the wonderful world of MAGA, will be relegated to the role of breeders with no dominion over their own bodies. Do you suppose Charles Koch understands that by unleashing the forces of evil he champions, he would be subject to deportation if the government decides to end birthright citizenship?

Naah, frankly, he seems unable to think that deeply or appreciate how the words of his mentor have metastasized into a system that will make serfs of us all. How ironic that by pedaling furiously to avoid serfdom, he has led the country to precisely that result.

AFP In Vermont

After graduating from college, Connolly worked for Republican campaigns before joining Americans for Prosperity in 2013. AFP has since expanded to 37 state chapters, but the only chapter in the six New England states is in New Hampshire. Eventually, AFP could establish a chapter in Vermont, which would give it infrastructure and full-time staff, and enable a permanent presence in the state. “We promise we will be here for the long term,” Connolly told the audience at Rutland. “We at AFP are not going anywhere.”

And we who value democracy and individual liberty will oppose you at every step of the way, Ross, in Vermont and every other state, with every fiber of our beings. You are making America into a new feudal society as you prostrate yourself before the alter of oil. The thirty pieces of silver you get for spreading your message of hate will never be enough to expiate your sins.

The only Americans who will prosper in the Kochtocracy to come are those who are already wealthy. Selling the dream of prosperity to the rest of us is a cruel joke, and it is quite amazing how many do not realize how, in the final analysis, the joke is on them.