As Democrats Sleepwalk Into A Biden Renomination, The Koch Network Announces It Will Help Stop Trump

Dan Balz and Emily Guskin wrote this morning that “Neither Biden nor Trump generates broad excitement within their own party, and most Americans overall say they would feel dissatisfied or angry if either wins the general election. Biden, who has said he intends to seek reelection, has no current opposition for the Democratic nomination. Trump is likely to face at least several challengers in his bid to lead his party for a third consecutive election.” Marianne Williamson is all but running and she has told supporters she’s in the race whether Biden runs or not. Her broadly progressive platform is what most Americans would like to see as a direction for the country. As for the GOP race, there are almost a dozen politicians who see themselves as the candidate to win the White House… if only Trump would keel over and die. The Democrats are counting someone even less appealing than Biden to run, setting up another lesser of two evils cycle that American voters hate. Obviously Trump fits that bill best. But Democratic operatives feel confident they can highlight all the worst in characters like DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo, Christie, Cruz, Youngkin, Abbott, Kemp, Rubio and easily handle minor figures and vanity candidates like John Bolton, Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, Larry Hogan, John Kasich, Francis Suarez, Will Hurd, Kristi Noem or Liz Cheney.

On Friday, Norman Solomon wrote that Biden is wielding the DNC's power to crush a potential primary challenge in 2024. Yesterday, he told me that “What we’re seeing now, as showcased by the latest DNC meeting, is conformity that blends denial with deference— denying the realities of clear poll data and deferring to the assumed unquestionable authority of Biden as party leader. The problem of groupthink is so entrenched that fearful obedience has become a normalized contagion with deeply ominous consequences for the Democratic Party and the country. The silences from Democrats in Congress and members of the DNC are screaming out, in effect: I'm too worried about ostracism from the party's power structure to say in public that Biden should not be the 2024 nominee.”

This pretty much sums up the new Washington Post/ABC News polling that should be as loud as warning for Democrats as it is for Republicans.

And into this mix, we were told yesterday, jumps the Koch network of right-wing plutocrats— which Trump has always derided as “a joke,” but which raises— and spends— tens of millions of dollars for conservative candidates. They have rebranded themselves under the Monica “Stand Together.” They want to back an alternative to Trump and are ready to come down heavily in the primaries. Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Ken Vogel reported that “The network, which consists of an array of political and advocacy groups backed by hundreds of ultrawealthy conservatives, has been among the most influential forces in American politics over the past 15 years, spending nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone. But it has never before supported candidates in presidential primaries. The potential move against Trump could motivate donors to line up behind another prospective candidate. Thus far, only the former president has entered the race. [A] memo is set to go out to the affiliated activists and donors after a weekend conference in Palm Springs, Calif., where the network’s leaders laid out their goals for the next presidential election cycle. At various sessions, they made clear they planned to get involved in primaries for various offices, and early.”

“The Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles,” the memo declares. “And the American people are rejecting them.” It asserts that Democrats are responding with “policies that also go against our core American principles.”

…One of the lessons learned from primary campaigns in the 2022 midterm election cycle, the memo says, in boldface, “is that the loudest voice in each political party sets the tone for the entire election. In a presidential year, that’s the presidential candidate.”

It continues, “And to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. The American people have shown that they’re ready to move on, and so A.F.P. will help them do that.”

Alex Leary, writing for the Wall Street Journal, reported that the memo released Sunday doesn’t mention Señor Trumpanzee by name but is unambiguous in its purpose. “Trump has been critical of the Kochs, branding them globalists and a ‘total joke,’ within a GOP he infused with more populist and isolationist policies.”

Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsforf noted that the Koch network’s decision “marks the most notable example to date of an overt and coordinated effort from within conservative circles to stop Trump from winning the GOP nomination for a third straight presidential election. Some Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump after disappointing midterm elections in which he drew blame for elevating flawed candidates and polarizing ideas. But absent a consolidated effort to stop Trump, many critics fear he will be able to exploit GOP divisions and chart a course to the nomination as he did in 2016… The Koch network now joins the Club for Growth, another of the largest outside spenders, and several of the party’s biggest individual donors such as finance billionaires Kenneth Griffin and Stephen Schwarzman in signaling their opposition to Trump’s current campaign. Others are holding back for now… How AFP follows through on the memo’s dramatic aims remains to be seen. The organization has in the past rolled out ambitious plans to influence primaries that did not eventually measure up. In the years since the Koch network stepped back from presidential primaries, many of its top donors drifted away toward other outfits or their own causes, and many of its most prominent strategists and operatives such as Marc Short, Tim Phillips and Mike Roman moved on to other jobs. Koch has also invested heavily in policy work and community-based organizations outside of direct spending on elections.”