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.
They've not come to Jesus on global warming, they're upset they lost.
It is the loss of control they regret, not whipping it up in the first place.
New rule: if you don't condemn child rape every Monday morning then until you do it is assumed that you are in favour.
Tiny furors like the "who's wearing an American flag lapel pin" are is too often motivated by political opportunity rather than any real question of where the parties stand on topics. And yes, Democrats do it to Republicans as well, just generally not as frequently. Republicans seem to love their mostly meaningless and unsurprising performative doxologies.
Ha, the difference is not nearly so stark as you'd think.
You need to update your views for today's political scene. These conditions were true up til around 2008. Since then, the Democrats are now the party that engages in the performative doxologies.
Need I remind you of all that tone-deaf BLM kneeling crap in DC? Or how about the mask mandates? The face masks are the Democrats' "American flag lapel pin."
Arguments against spreading diseased aerosols based on politics or some personal liberty are simplistic and ignore physical reality.
1) there is a political party in the US, who are using the face mask issue to shame and politically attack another party.
2) this is a reversal of the roles these two political parties played just a decade and change earlier.
Do you really think AOC et al are against it? I've seen so much left-wing justification of punching Nazis etc. that I'd be very surprised if there weren't at least a few Democratic politicians in agreement.
Ilhan Omar calls for complete dismantling of the Minneapolis police department around 1:30 in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj3vdaC4F7c Yes, that's complete dismantling, none of this "redirect a bit of the funds" stuff which got retconned (watch the entire video for more examples). So I wouldn't put anything past her.
The Charles Koch was accused of "whipping up a mob" earlier in this thread, but whatever mob he "whipped up" was a very mild-mannered one which didn't light any fires. It seemed worthwhile to highlight the disparity.
I don't think this is a "tiny" furor. (As you illustrate, even if Democrats don't endorse violence, they are very willing to downplay it!) I recommend this video: https://twitter.com/mrctv/status/1297707698788728832
That's why we end up with dead police who walk into ambushes, dead black guys who make the mistake of relaxing in their own apartments when lady cops burst in guns blazing, burned stores, dead little old ladies who go to bible studies while black, and dead walmart shoppers who made the mistake of being minority while looking for a San Antonio Spurs dart board at the wrong time.
Extremists are just dangerous people. We should really be bringing the hammer against all these groups wherever we find them, but again, they are protected by their patrons. So they walk the streets tatted and masked up waving around AR's because they know their benefactors will not allow our counter-terrorism units to do what military sense would demand in a sensible world.
And why did the FBI stop the kidnapping of a governor?
If this theory held true the republican federal government would be fine with right wing terrorists abducting democratic governors
There are enough career civil servants out there that believe in the fundamentals of their roles that they keep the machinery of civilization turning along. I don't disagree with the parent's remarks at all - failure to condemn violent acts really is a both sides problem right now.
I get that you want to come off as an enlightened centrist here but you’re gonna have to be specific. What’s the liberal Koch brothers and what’s the liberal Tea Party?
The funny thing is that "whipping the liberal mob into a frenzy" is a literal thing that happened this year that resulted in riots, looting, civil unrest and a full on "autonomous zone" in Seattle.
To my knowledge, the only real harm the Tea Party accomplished was rolling back environmental/emissions regulations.
I... hm. I don’t think that quite sounds right.
Because that is what a "whipped up mob" is. Not angry citizens demanding responsible and accountable law enforcement and action toward that end from their elected officials and unelected police forces.
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 public position like this. If he were 60, I would have expected him to wait 4–8 years for the next Republican administration instead.
There's a valid discussion to be had about whether Charles Koch is full of crap, but I don't think it's wrong for newspapers to report on what people with power say.
The answer is clearly: because his research showed that this particular messaging (this story and the book) was the most advantageous to his political goals. If any part of it was literally meaningful then it would have the explanations you noticed were missing.
But you don't call out a Kock brother on his weak sauce image management in the WSJ, you just promote his book, do what you're told, and avoid making that kind of enemy.
He's got fairly conservative and finance friendly Democrats to influence right now and taking his money can't be too much of a public scandal.