First of three parts.
I used to tune out when people railed against the Koch brothers. What did their antics have to do with life in New Hampshire? Sure, the Sununu family behaved in a rampantly pro-fossil-fuel manner, weird in a state with no fossil fuels, but maybe that was because they still had family and holdings in the Middle East. Or maybe it was due to ties and investments John Sununu made back when he worked for President George H.W. Bush.
Then Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut approved a right-wing charter school into our town of Peterborough. Lionheart Academy was to be run by a radical evangelical college in Michigan, of all places, I started investigating the college and all the people associated with it, including Charles Koch, Ginni Thomas and Edelblut. I expect you will be as startled and disturbed as I was at what I discovered.
It’s a long, winding story. Let’s start with David Koch. For years, David and his brother Charles owned 42 percent each of Koch Industries. It’s the largest privately held firm in the United States with $115 in revenues, much of it from petrochemicals. David earned his master’s degree in five years at the engineering department of MIT, simultaneously with young John H. Sununu.
Now it’s 1980. David is running for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, funded largely by Koch-associated money. If you follow the news, the Libertarian platform of 1980 is going to sound very familiar 42 years later. It demands the abolition of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the public schools, aid to children, the Post Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and a host of other government programs and departments.
The Libertarians lose in 1980, of course, but the infrastructure for achieving their goals is founded two years later. The Federalist Society is a group of influential law professors, lawyers, and judges. Its goal? To train members of their professions to believe in “originalism.” Originalists strictly view the Constitution as they believed the framers designed it back in 1787. This matched David Koch’s 1980 platform. It would leave corporations free to seek profit without regard for its impacts on people or the environment. There would be no regulatory agencies watching over them.
Older Federalist Society members use their influence to advance their followers to higher judgeships over the years. But, meanwhile, we’ll jump back to New Hampshire for a moment, then wend our way to that college in Michigan.
Sununu family roles
Meanwhile, John Sununu becomes governor of New Hampshire, then chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. In that role, in 1989, he thwarts the United States from joining the international conference to address climate change. Actions like this, that benefit Koch and the rest of the fossil-fuel industry, become a hallmark of the Sununu family.
In 1993, Stephen P. Farrar, an executive of Koch Industries’ Michigan subsidiary, Guardian Industries, becomes a founding trustee of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy [JBC] in New Hampshire. Its mission is to advance many of the policies listed on David Koch’s platform of 1980. John Sununu, and later his son James, chair the JBC through today.
Another Sununu son, Michael, becomes a vocal climate denier and industry consultant. Still another, Sen. John E. Sununu, opposes the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003. But the Sununus are not coup leaders, just complicit.
Building infrastructure for the coup
Now let’s check in on the Federalist Society. Its mission is succeeding. They are stacking the lower courts. Clarence Thomas is appointed to the Supreme Court. From 1996 to 1997, Thomas employs a Federalist Society clerk named John Eastman.
Twenty-three years later, Eastman would meet secretly with President Donald Trump. He would convince him that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept Electoral College ballots on Jan. 6. But back in 1999, Eastman becomes a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. Its mission is “to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.” The Claremont founder who hires Eastman is Larry Arnn.
Now we’re almost at the secret clubhouse of the coup. In late 1999, Arnn is in the process of replacing the president of Hillsdale College because of a scandal that made national news. Hillsdale promotes conservative family values. Yet its leader was accused of having an affair with his daughter-in-law. She killed herself. Hillsdale is the central hub for Libertarian radicals, so they need a strong leader to pull them out of the mud. Larry Arnn is their man.
Next: “Teaching … is our weapon.” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn
Jeanne Dietsch is a former Democratic New Hampshire state senator and current executive director of Granite State Matters.