(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Dave Wiegel At Semafor Latest To Carry Koch Water About Supposed Schism With Trump [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-24 It's 2015 , and Koch network operatives are reportedly not working with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, as its operatives go to work for the Donald Trump campaign. It's 2016 , and Koch network operatives are staffing Donald Trump's presidential transition team, and the Trump administration . It's 2017 , and Koch network operative Mike Pence is Vice President under Donald Trump. It's 2018 , and Koch network operatives are attacking the idea of more inclusive climate policy, and denying even their own anti-climate lobbying. It's 2019 , and Koch network operatives are reframing themselves as climate champs, and rebranding as “Stand Together,” while lying about the Green New Deal and denying the climate consensus . " It's 2020 , and a Koch network operative admits anyone who fell for the prior rebrand ruse is "going to be surprised" because the plan is "to go bigger than ever before." Ten months later, a Koch network operative, Charles “ Chuckie” Koch gives an interview about the network's less-partisan rebrand, even as he sets up a new disinfo center at Tufts and spends over $1 billion helping Republicans in the 2020 elections. It's 2021 , and Koch network operatives are lobbying against EPA regulations, using hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to inject disinfo into schools and universities. It's 2022 , and Koch network operatives are telling media they're going to figure out who's behind all this polarization, as though they're not the ones spreading fake news attacking their clean competitors , defending doing business in Russia , spending over $50 million on climate disinfo, buying a Supreme Court majority, and sending errand-boy Mike Pence on an ill-fated anti- ESG crusade potentially robbing taxpayers of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. It's 2023 , and Koch network operatives are claiming to rebrand as less partisan and separate themselves from Donald Trump, not on ideological grounds, but because they want someone " who can win ." Semafor , the newest entry in the access-driven DC press world, takes this as an opportunity to prove once again that it puts a greater priority in appeasing fossil fuel sponsors and billionaires who, like them, claim to want to reduce polarization , than it does on doing actual journalism. It's like Semafor's David Weigel read Popular Information's February explainer on " how Koch manipulates the media " and decided it was his turn to write the same exact sort of story that hacks have run about Koch and Trump since 2016, with a headline wondering, " Did Donald Trump break the Koch machine for good? " No. For the past eight years, at least, Koch network operatives have played supposedly-savvy DC reporters for saps, pretending to oppose a political operation even as they staff it. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/24/2159966/-Dave-Wiegel-At-Semafor-Latest-To-Carry-Koch-Water-About-Supposed-Schism-With-Trump Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/