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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

wsj.com

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#301

Post by Wowfunhappy »

smnrchrds wrote: post #209
aazaa wrote: post #191

The article would have been improved by giving some insight into what changed his mind. You don't just go from what he and his brother have done to the US to: > Boy, did we screw up! Without an inkling as to how or why they screwed up, there's no way to gauge what, if any, change to expect.

> The article would have been improved by giving some insight into what changed his mind. The article would have been improved by at least proving he has changed his mind. Charles Koch is 85. There is a decent chance he is not going to live long enough to see another Republican administration. It would be in the best interest of maintaining some political influence and making some more change for him to change his pu…

How can an article "prove" that someone has changed their mind?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#302

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

meowing wrote: post #101
chub500 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my asking - what's cynical about this title? Should we not believe in people? Is the world not top-down oriented? Sorry - just confused.

Koch has spent a fortune on destabilizing public infrastructure in midwest cities. If he "believed in people", he could show it by not tearing down public transit systems which disenfranchises poorer people.

Is public transit bottom up? I'd say just the opposite.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#303

Post by pessimizer »

nostromo wrote: post #261
CameronNemo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the Emmet Till accuser admitting she lied, once she was on her death bed.

She was 14. I don't think we can blame her for what happened to Emmet Till. Edit: thanks for the correction, she was 21. However, I still think the blame should fall on Till's murderers.

Blame isn't exclusive.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#304

Post by bredren »

sangnoir wrote: post #300
pjscott wrote: post #266

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasizing the partisan tug-o-war stuff, which looks less promising now than it did during (for example) the early days of the Tea Party, and focusing on the less fought-over parts. It's a reasonable approach if he wants to get things done, but not the about-face th…

I'm not sure if I'm being overly cynical - but isn't this just a tactic to consolidate the gains he managed to win by discouraging the other side from using his methods? Similar to how challengers decry bureaucracy, but once they become incumbents, wield it as a cudgel to swat down upstarts.

We saw this in the Portland mayoral race. The only on-ballot challenger to the incumbent used political tactics that overcame what would normally be exclusionary credentials. It was so successful, I was taken aback by it.

At one point I had a chance to speak with the candidate by phone, and I spoke about my concerns about the divisive rhetoric.

The candidate said it was only something they had to do to "fire up my base" and that they would not govern in the way they had campaigned.

Hearing that sent a chill down my spine and I voted against this person.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#305

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

pjscott wrote: post #266

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasizing the partisan tug-o-war stuff, which looks less promising now than it did during (for example) the early days of the Tea Party, and focusing on the less fought-over parts. It's a reasonable approach if he wants to get things done, but not the about-face th…

>In July 2015 Charles Koch and his brother were praised by President Obama and Anthony Van Jones for their bipartisan efforts to reform the criminal justice system.[67][68] For roughly a decade Koch has been advocating for several reforms within the prison system, including the reduction of recidivist criminals, easing the employment process for rehabilitated persons, and the defense of private property from asset forfeiture.[68][69] Aligning with groups such as the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Coalition for Public Safety, and the MacArthur Foundation, Koch believes the current system has unfairly targeted low-income and minority communities all while wasting substantial government resources.[68][70]

>In February 2016, Koch penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post, where he said he agreed with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about the unfairness of corporate welfare and mass incarceration in the United States.[71]

>In June 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation announced the foundation of anti-war think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cosponsored by George Soros' Open Society Foundation.[72] He is a board member at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented research think tank at George Mason University.[73]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koch

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#306

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

aniro wrote: post #258
pjc50 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I posted last time this came up, the problem to him is that the Tea Party they backed went out of their control. They wanted a nice biddable anti-government party. They got chaos. They've not come to Jesus on global warming, they're upset they lost.

Exactly. They whipped the mob into a frenzy with lies and bullshit so they could use its power to get what they wanted. Then they lost control of it. It is the loss of control they regret, not whipping it up in the first place.

Reminds me of the Democrats not condemning mob violence until it started to hurt them in the polls.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#307

Post by nostromo »

pessimizer wrote: post #303
nostromo wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was 14. I don't think we can blame her for what happened to Emmet Till. Edit: thanks for the correction, she was 21. However, I still think the blame should fall on Till's murderers.

Blame isn't exclusive.

Murdering someone is clearly worse than lying about a kid whistling at you.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#308

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

rootusrootus wrote: post #197
wombatmobile wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats and liberals on issues such as immigration, criminal-justice reform and limiting U.S. intervention abroad, where he thinks common ground can be found. He has partnered with organizations including the LeBron James Family Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and even a handful of Democratic state legislative campaigns. In 2019, he renamed the Koch netw…

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats A pragmatic choice given that a Democrat just won the White House. He can sit it out, or try to work with them and possibly influence their position.

He's been working with the Democrats for a while actually.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#309

Post by rhino369 »

extra88 wrote: post #260
nokcha wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How is it "originalist" to take the 2nd Amendment, which refers to "well regulated Militia," and using it to say there's a Constitutional right to owning a handgun for personal protection...? The relation between the operative clause and the prefatory clause is that, historically, kings had effectively destroyed the militia by forbidding the keeping or bearing of arms. Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller cites a grea…

How can one be an originalist and ignore half of the sentence, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,"? A law requiring a trigger lock does not infringe on the forming of militia or maintaining the security of a free State. Conservative judges, including Scalia, generally don't claim that all arms regulation is unconstitutional, they don't claim everyone has a right to own RPGs. I…

Because grammatically (then or now), that part of the sentence doesn't limit the independent clause--"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If the first amendment said, "A well read electorate, being necessary to a free state, the right the people to free speech, shall not be infringed," would you say it only covered political speech?

Practically, I don't see how it makes any difference. Handguns are used by every single armed forces in the world. Any militia would need them anyway. If I can't own a handgun, how could I serve in a militia?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#310

Post by zests »

sangnoir wrote: post #300
pjscott wrote: post #266

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasizing the partisan tug-o-war stuff, which looks less promising now than it did during (for example) the early days of the Tea Party, and focusing on the less fought-over parts. It's a reasonable approach if he wants to get things done, but not the about-face th…

I'm not sure if I'm being overly cynical - but isn't this just a tactic to consolidate the gains he managed to win by discouraging the other side from using his methods? Similar to how challengers decry bureaucracy, but once they become incumbents, wield it as a cudgel to swat down upstarts.

Both sides -- the ones that arise naturally from winner takes all voting systems -- are stuck. If they are less partisan than the opposing side, they risk losing ground. If current partisanness trends continue progress is stopped and potential sympathetic voters are turned off of your platform.

There will be winners who can navigate the hyperpartisan environment (or even thrive in the environment) and losers who cannot or who do not have enough of a grasp of the situation to make the correct decision. An outside observer can determine how fast two bodies are moving away from each other but, from the perspective of the moving body, it can be a lot less clear who is moving and what the relative speeds are.

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