When Trump picked Mike Pence for his VP, we pointed out the close working relationship the billionaires have with the now-Vice President. As Trump started staffing up last November, we again directed your attention to how the Kochs were puppeteering Trump. Now Jane Mayer, Mayor of Koch Journalism, has a deep dive in The New Yorker on VP Pence and the Billionaire Brothers. The piece is absolutely worth the read, but in short: President Pence would not necessarily be better than Trump on most issues, unless you like the Koch agenda.
While the “jokes” Trump reportedly makes about Pence’s views on homosexuality (per Mayer, Trump has said Pence “wants to hang them all”) are getting follow-up headlines, a climate-relevant passage in Mayer’s piece made us sit up and take notice. Apparently back in 2009, when the Koch group Americans for Prosperity was circulating the “No Climate Tax” pledge, it was Pence who was key to ginning up signatures for the pledge to protect Kochprofits from climate policy.
Pence gave speeches full of Koch messaging about the cap and trade bill being a “declaration of war on the Midwest” as well as the lie that it would be “the largest tax increase in American history.” He also paraded around a Heritage Foundation map and provided kits to House Republicans to take Koch-sanctioned arguments against the bill back to their home states.
Thanks in large part to Pence’s campaigning, the “No Climate Tax” pledge grew tenfold, from a mere fourteen signers to a much more impressive 156. And the Kochs took notice. While the billionaires hadn’t given Pence much attention before his climate crusade, afterwards “he was the Kochs’ guy,” Checks & Balances Project’s Scott Peterson told Mayer, “and they’ve been showering him with money ever since.”
As Mayer notes, the pledge and the concurrent downfall of cap and trade “marked a pivotal turn in the climate-change debate, cementing Republican opposition to addressing the environmental crisis.”
The aftermath of Pence’s crusade is a GOP scared to publicly address the reality of climate change. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told Vox this week that there are a handful of Republican senators (six to 10) with whom he talks climate behind-the-scenes, and who are ready to take action once they won’t get destroyed for it by forces like the Kochs. Whitehouse describes these Republicans’ secret climate seriousness as a theoretical jail break, wherein they need “safe passage through the fence, through the kill zone around the fence” to a getaway car (a price on carbon) that they all agree on. But until the Koch brothers are disarmed, that “kill zone” remains a problem. If the Kochs’ Chosen One Pence gets the promotion to President, we don’t have much hope for a great escape.
So as the “Adult Daycare” view of Trump’s White House continues gaining steam, the idea of a President Pence may feel increasingly comforting. But even that isn’t looking too appealing, since the man who calls his wife “Mother” seems to call the Koch brothers “Daddy.”
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