bending it toward a nationalist, populist philosophy that Charles Koch found abhorrent. Trump’s policies aimed to benefit specific populations of Americans, rather than to solely limit government interventions in the marketplace.
Shortly after Trump’s election, congressional Republicans scurried to reorient themselves around Trumpism. Many Congress members knew that Trump won their home districts with more votes than they had. They were not about to oppose him. If Donald Trump was president for eight years, it would almost certainly abolish Charles Koch’s political project. The Republican Party would be the party of Trump, not Hayek or von Mises. Koch Industries’ retreat from the 2016 election cycle had been well publicized, and members of the Trump administration were quick to point out that the Koch network’s political influence was diminishing, almost certainly for good.
Charles Koch took a different point of view. He was conditioned to thrive in volatile environments. He thought about the long term, and tended to avoid the wall of noise and media controversy that emanated from the White House each day. Charles Koch worked on a longer political horizon and that gave him an advantage. He had spent more than forty years building a densely connected network of political operatives and institutions in the nation’s capital. Donald Trump had not.
When Trump arrived in Washington, Charles Koch was ready.
* * *
I. Appending an R, for registered trademark, to MBM seems to be the preferred style for Koch Industries executives. Charles Koch used the abbreviation in his own writing, and it also appeared in internal memos.
II. The “tail” of a paper roll is the last section of paper that flaps loose, like the outside tab of paper on a toilet paper roll.
CHAPTER 24
* * *
Burning
(2017–2018)
Springtime came early to the nation’s capital in 2017. In early February, the air was unseasonably warm and the trees were starting to get their buds. Brightly colored flowers bloomed in Lafayette Square park, just north of the White House, with early tulips pushing up from their beds and cherry trees frosting themselves with pink and white blossoms. In the suburbs, the forsythia exploded in vibrant yellow flowers and the redbud trees were covered in purple. The riotous colors of spring, usually celebrated in the capital city, were out of place and disquieting, like flashing signals on a dashboard. Across the country, springtime arrived weeks early, with the zone of blooming advancing farther north than usual. The election year of 2016 was the hottest year on Earth since reliable record keeping began around 1880. NASA compared Earth’s average surface temperatures against a period in the mid-1990s, and found the average temperature rose steadily each year. Sixteen of the seventeen warmest years on record occurred after 2001, peaking in 2016. Eight of twelve months in 2016 broke records as the hottest months ever recorded. Scientists at NASA did not dispute what caused the warming. It was “a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere,” the agency said. In the winter of 2017, carbon concentrations in the atmosphere reached 407 parts per million, far past the limit where most scientists considered radical climate change unavoidable.
The political seasons in Washington, DC, were being disrupted as well. On January 20 Donald J. Trump stood on the grand dais in the shadow of the Capitol dome, put his hand on the Bible, and took the president’s oath. No candidate in US history had risen to the White House like the real estate mogul had done. He was backed by no party, supported by no discernable outside interests, and had no previous experience in government or military service. The usually stable networks of political influence were torn apart in 2017. No one knew who was in or out of Trump’s political circle. No one knew what he really wanted—what was hyperbole and what was an actual campaign platform. The lobbyists at Koch Companies Public Sector and other companies had adapted to political shocks before, but this time was different. The Trump administration saw itself as a revolutionary force, independent of both political parties. One person close to the administration, and who also had been close to the Koch’s political operations, said that the Trump administration viewed Washington, DC, as a chessboard on which three opponents were doing battle. One opponent (and the weakest) was the Democratic establishment: “Team D.” Another was the Republican establishment: “Team R.” Finally, there was the Trump administration, “Team T,” which planned to beat everyone else.
When Trump delivered his inaugural address, he made