Many wealthy corporations are convinced that public perception is something they control — along with Congress, the Presidency, and it seems like, just about everything else in the country right now. One thing they didn’t control was how unpopular the “Make Rich People Richer by Hurting Everyone Else Bill” is. Despite the constant lies from the GOP, the tax bill is tremendously unpopular (for a bill purported to cut people’s taxes especially). Many of us have wondered why politicians, who have to be elected by the very people who hate the bill, would imperil their re-election chances by voting for such an obvious giveaway to the ultra-rich. And many of our theories (they have no souls, they are enriching themselves, the Kochs threatened to cut off contributions) have to be right. But there’s another reason they voted for a vastly unpopular bill.
The Kochs have promised to change our minds. Like with everything else, the Kochs are confident they can get what they want by throwing money and telling lies. It makes sense that GOP legislators (the few who seemed to care what their constituents thought) decided to vote for this tremendously unpopular bill because they were promised that the Koch Brothers could make it popular. Our job is to stop them.
Admittedly, we have few tools to fight with. The GOP controlling Congress and the Executive Branch, and the Gorsuch appointment making the Supreme Court GOP-friendly means we cant stop them legislatively. And they’ve devised the bill so most voters won’t feel the pain until after 2020. So they think they can put lipstick on this pig and call it a beauty queen. But ad campaigns don’t always work— thus the “New Coke” reminder. Democrats, Independents and everyone who hates this transfer of more wealth to the already wealthy need to make sure no one forgets how bad this bill is. We need to make sure voters arent tricked into believing the Koch ad campaigns. The DNC needs to spend like the Kochs to ensure the GOP wears this bill around their necks like an anchor. We need to let Congress know that billionaires can’t promise them everything and that if they want to vote for such an unpopular bill there will be consequences. We have to show elected officials that there are some limits to what the Kochs can do for them. They can buy them off but they can’t buy our hearts and minds. It was clear some of them were worried but were persuaded they wouldn’t have electoral consequences. The all-powerful Kochs think they can immunize our legislative branch completely from the wrath of voters. And they convinced legislators that they could do that. We have to show them they were wrong.
Once, back in the 80’s a powerful corporation was convinced they could convince people that a different tasting Coke was what people really wanted. They failed spectacularly. Democracy needs another ad campaign to fail spectacularly. We dont need Congressional votes to make that happen. We just need to keep telling the truth over and over again that this tax bill hurts everyone but the rich. We have to make sure that in November of 2018 the truth about this tax bill has made anyone who voted for it toxic. And we have to show our representatives that sometimes the Kochs make promises they cant keep.
(I wont be around for a while as I still have loads to do for Christmas. And I think I’ll have a coke while I’m doing it)