At first glance, the tea party looks like right-wing populism run amok. However, as anyone who follows politics to any degree knows, it’s actually one of the biggest astroturf projects in recent memory. We got an example of this late last month at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia–a school that has gotten a hefty amount of money from the tea party’s main bagmen, the Koch brothers. Seems that one of its professors thinks that we actually need less democracy in this country.
Garett Jones, an associate economics professor at GMU, gave a lecture on February 24 in which he argued that this country would be governed a lot better if democracy were reduced by 10 percent. The lecture first gained notice when Fourth Estate, GMU’s student run news site, stumbled on it last week. Jones contended that we would be better served if we had more “epistocracy,” or government by the knowledgeable. Politicians, Jones said, tend to ignore long-term growth because they are too focused on being reelected. Senators, for instance, make decisions based on the next election rather than spend their six-year terms focused on the long term because they think voters have short memories.
I have to take Jones’ argument with a generous helping of salt. According to Jones’ biography, he is associated with the Mercatus Center, a think tank with long-standing ties to the Koch brothers. Indeed, two top executives with Koch Industries–including Charles Koch, the elder of the Koch brothers–are members of Mercatus’ board. Through his foundation, Charles Koch has given some $23 million to GMU in the last decade. As Alternet’s Zaid Jilani points out, Jones’ claims are right in line with Koch efforts to drive down voter participation with, among other things, voter ID laws.
Then again, I have to wonder if the Kochs’ left hand knows what its right hand is doing. After all, the stock in trade for Americans for Prosperity and other tea party groups was to send a message to those librul elitists in the White House and Senate–a textbook example of stirring up short-term anger at the expense of the big picture. Sounds like it’s perfectly fine as long as the “right” people are voting. Remember, when liberals engage in grass-roots activism, they’re a bunch of dirty effing hippies. But when conservatives do it, they’re patriots. This kind of disconnect is only possible when you get a lot of Koch-caine in the lecture hall.
