Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

In hindsight, it seems that David Koch’s 1980 campaign served as a bridge between LeFevre’s radical pedagogy and the Tea Party movement. Indeed the Libertarian Party’s standard-bearer that year, Clark, told The Nation that libertarians were getting ready to stage “a very big tea party,” because people were “sick to death” of taxes. The party’s platform, meanwhile, was almost an exact replica of the Freedom School’s radical curriculum. It called for the repeal of all campaign-finance laws and the abolition of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It also favored the abolition of all government health-care programs, including Medicaid and Medicare. It attacked Social Security as “virtually bankrupt” and called for its abolition, too. The Libertarians also opposed all income and corporate taxes, including capital gains taxes, and called for an end to the prosecution of tax evaders. Their platform called for the abolition too of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, and the CIA, among other government agencies. It demanded the abolition of “any laws” impeding employment—by which it meant minimum wage and child labor laws. And it targeted public schools for abolition too, along with what it termed the “compulsory” education of children. The Libertarians also wanted to get rid of the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, seat belt laws, and all forms of welfare for the poor. The platform ...