Americans For Prosperity Action, the cunningly named Koch Industries vessel for political gamesmanship, doesn’t believe prosperity is amply and successfully achieved through the auspices of former President Donald Trump. (Anathema also, to the Koch machinery, is incumbent Joe Biden and his purported fossil fuel antipathy, which strikes at the heart of the Koch fortune.)
So for the Koch network, the top two presidential choices at the moment aren’t a fit: Despite the fact that Trump policies were widely considered beneficial to Koch interests, the Koch network sat out the presidential race in 2020 rather than back Trump, nor did it back him in 2016. (Notably, it did back all three of Trump’s SCOTUS nominees and appreciated the 2017 GOP tax cut bill Trump signed.)
But now Americans for Prosperity Action is throwing its millions in with longshot Nikki Haley in the GOP 2024 primary. Policy accord with Trump notwithstanding, the Koch network evidently has problems with his governance. Turns out the Koch family, whose early fortunes hinged on developing a new method of refining heavy crude, thinks Trump is too crude to refine for their purposes.
Now Haley and the Koch network — which many credit with virtually creating the Tea Party, the GOP seedbed for MAGA — are together traveling an anti-Trump path that is strewn with dead contenders, resisters and antagonists.
A recent CNN analysis lists those futile, failed and moribund anti-Trumpian forces as:
- Busted 2016 $100 million front-runner Jeb Bush
- Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton
- Two impeachments
- Old school Republicans like Mitt Romney
- Millions splashed by the Club for Growth and the Lincoln Project
- A 2020 election defeat
- A pliant House GOP majority
- And several special counsels
As to the last bullet, whether the Special Counsel Jack Smith will ultimately have as little impact on Trump’s popularity and freedom to conduct business as usual as Special Counsel Robert Mueller had remains to be seen.
Also remaining to be seen is what measure of effectiveness the Koch cash can have – through its advocacy of distant GOP alternative Haley — on diminishing the chances of a second Trump administration.
