Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

by Kurt Andersen

Extremely reasonable, extremely center-left Obama horrified the Kochs and their friends, in particular his successful passage of the Affordable Care Act after a year in office. When the Republicans won back Congress—that is, saved America from Obama—Charles told a reporter that while “I’m not saying he’s a Marxist, he’s internalized some Marxist models—that is, that business tends to be successful by exploiting its customers and workers.” In the same article, his brother called Obama “the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation” who, in less than two years, had “done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had.” A billionaire member of their political network (and resident of David Koch’s Park Avenue apartment building) was also apoplectic about the president’s mere suggestion that private equity guys like him should pay taxes on their incomes at an income tax rate of 35 percent, as it was then, instead of the capital gains rate of 15 percent. “It’s a war,” Stephen Schwarzman remarked. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”