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I would argue that there's been a backlash this year [2016]. They [the Kochs] pushed the [Republican] party too far right. The other thing that the backlash is against is the sense that politicians have been bought and sold.

Jane Mayer

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Jane Mayer
Age: 70
Born: 1955
Born: January 1
Investigative Reporter
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Jane Meredith Mayer
Thing
Arguing
Years
Politicians
Would
Politician
Republican
Backlash
Year
Pushed
Party
Argue
Sense
Sold
Right
Bought

More quotes by Jane Mayer

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The book that I wrote is called Dark Money, and it's about secret spending that is very hard to follow. [George] Soros's whole thing is about government transparency, so he spends very much in the open, and the same with [Tom] Steyer.
Jane Mayer
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Barack Obama was elected President in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. The natural thing would be to suggest money on the right [wing] doesn't really matter that much. The first thing you have to know is that the presidential elections are the ones where it's most difficult for money to hold sway, in that they're the most public elections.
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[Donald] Trump has put forward a list of people he would like to see on the Supreme Court, whom the Kochs would be very happy with too. So it's not all bad for them.
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There have been waves of reform in the past. I see no reason why they wouldn't happen again.
Jane Mayer
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Let's face it, the subject of campaign finance is not always scintillating. But it's incredibly important.
Jane Mayer
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Money has much more power down the ballot.
Jane Mayer
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The possibility exists that the Kochs will walk away with even more power if [Donalds] Trump's defeated.
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The great unknown in this country is where this leaves the Republican Party after this election. Will it be the party of the Kochs or will it be the party of [Donald] Trump?
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The idea is that if we can put our own people through something almost as bad as what they might have to go through if they were taken captive, they will inoculate themselves.
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What these memos do is they make legal acts that were criminal prior to these memos.
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I kept thinking maybe in the future editions [of Dark Money] I should sell it along with, like, some kind of, you know, Pepto Bismol or something. I wanted it to read a little bit like a thriller, so that it truly grabbed people.
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Nothing predicts future behavior as much as past impunity.
Jane Mayer
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We would see another president being accused of being illegitimate, and undermined from day one, which is exactly what these donors did to [Barack] Obama.
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So you've got these regular, middle-class voters who don't hate the government as much as the Kochs do. They're Republicans, but they still want government programs. They want Social Security, they want Medicare. They need it.
Jane Mayer
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The Kochtopus is the nickname that people who've worked for the Kochs came up with because there's so many tentacles and it likes the shadows. I really feel the first step is to provide the information.
Jane Mayer
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Donald Trump actually is a pretty big-government conservative. He doesn't see eye-to-eye with them [the Kochs] on trade.
Jane Mayer
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It's hard for them to run away from their record. The Kochs are businessmen.
Jane Mayer
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People I've interviewed say they're terrified there may be boycotts of their [the Kochs] products, which include so many household items that everybody's familiar with, things like Stainmaster Carpet and Dixie Cups and Brawny paper towels and Lycra.
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Ethically, I think pretty much every code of ethics for doctors suggests that they should not be in an interrogation room, particularly if there's anything coercive or abusive going on.
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This year [2016] we're seeing a really strange upending [of the party]. The money was coming from these super-wealthy donors who were really on the far, hard right, people like the Kochs. So the party and the candidates moved so far to the right that a lot of people who don't share their point of view were unhappy.
Jane Mayer