How conservative megadonors built a shadow GOP that weakened the official party
The Republican Party's official organs have seen the amount of money at their disposal decline by hundreds of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, outside conservative advocacy groups — mostly controlled by a small network of extremely wealthy donors — have built sprawling national political institutions with large enough staffs and financial clout to rival a weakening GOP infrastructure.
Particularly since the mid-2000s, Republican politicians have moved almost uniformly toward a set of far-right positions on tax policy and cutting government spending, according to Skocpol.
There's good evidence that these positions are to the right of even the Republican electorate. A 2015 Pew poll, for instance, found that about half of Republicans think the wealthy don't pay "their fair share" in taxes — even as their party moves to dramatically slash tax rates on top earners.
Of course, it's impossible to prove that the rise of the Kochs caused the Republican Party's rightward shift on economic issues. But Skocpol believes the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that it's been a major contributing factor.
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In one analysis, for instance, the researchers found states with AFP branches were about 30 percent more likely to curb public sector union rights — even controlling for outside factors, like the strength of that state's union and its ideological composition.
"The Koch network ... has become thoroughly intertwined with the Republican Party and functions to pull GOP candidates and officeholders into alignment with Koch policy preferences," Skocpol says.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11348780/gop-megadonors-koch-brothers
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