Dark Money
The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
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Narrated by:
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Kirsten Potter
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By:
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Jane Mayer
About this listen
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the rise of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views also played a key role by bankrolling a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.
The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet, foremost among them Charles and David Koch. Their core beliefs - that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom - are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.
When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies decided on another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fund an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency.
The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. And their efforts have been remarkably successful. Libertarian views on taxes and regulation, once far outside the mainstream and still rejected by most Americans, are ascendant in the majority of state governments, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Meaningful environmental, labor, finance, and tax reform have been stymied.
Jane Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of interviews - including with several sources within the network - and scoured public records, private papers, and court proceedings in reporting this book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of dollars spent by the network and provides vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy.
Dark Money is a book that must be listened to by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.
©2016 Jane Mayer (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
- By: Kurt Andersen
- Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled.
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History through a far left lens
- By Josh on 09-03-20
By: Kurt Andersen
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The System
- Who Rigged It, How We Fix It
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of Americans have lost confidence in our political and economic system. After years of stagnant wages, volatile job markets, and an unwillingness by those in power to deal with profound threats such as climate change, there is a mounting sense that the system is fixed, serving only those select few with enough money to secure a controlling stake. With the characteristic clarity and passion that has made him a central civil voice, Robert B. Reich shows how wealth and power have interacted to install an elite oligarchy, eviscerate the middle class, and undermine democracy.
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Turn Off Your TV. Wake Up and Listen Now!
- By Benchmark on 03-25-20
By: Robert B. Reich
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Insurgency
- How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted
- By: Jeremy W. Peters
- Narrated by: Jeremy W. Peters
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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An epic narrative chronicling the fracturing of the Republican Party, Jeremy Peters’s Insurgency is the story of a party establishment that believed it could control the dark energy it helped foment—right up until it suddenly couldn’t. How, Peters asks, did conservative values that Republicans claimed to cherish, like small government, fiscal responsibility, and morality in public service, get completely eroded as an unshakable faith in Donald Trump grew to define the party?
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Insurgency
- By Linda Blake on 02-18-22
By: Jeremy W. Peters
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Kleptopia
- How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- By: Tom Burgis
- Narrated by: Tom Burgis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.
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Lazy Journalism in long narrative form
- By Jeremy on 02-14-21
By: Tom Burgis
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Goliath
- The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
- By: Matt Stoller
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A startling look at how concentrated financial power and consumerism transformed American politics, resulting in the emergence of populism and authoritarianism, the fall of the Democratic Party - while also providing the steps needed to create a new democracy.
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The Fall of American Populist Economics
- By Charlie Morton on 02-26-20
By: Matt Stoller
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The Power Worshippers
- Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Tosca Hopkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.
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The Audible editors were AWOL on this one
- By Frank Hightower on 05-24-20
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The Field of Blood
- Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
- By: Joanne B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Joanne B. Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the US Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery.
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fascinating look at an untold aspect of US.history
- By P. Cardella on 09-27-18
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The Shadow Party
- How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party
- By: David Horowitz, Richard Poe
- Narrated by: Gregg Rizzo
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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America is under attack. Its institutions and values are under daily assault. But the principal culprits are not foreign terrorists. They are influential and powerful Americans secretly stirring up disunion and disloyalty in the shifting shadows of the Democratic Party. Radical infiltrators have been quietly transforming America's societal, cultural, and political institutions for more than a generation. Now, backed by George Soros, they are ready to make their move.
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Best introduction to the Democrat party in 2019
- By Larry on 06-12-19
By: David Horowitz, and others
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Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.
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Brilliant explanation of the realignment of world powers
- By Elizabeth on 11-06-24
By: Anne Applebaum
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Tailspin
- The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall - and Those Fighting to Reverse It
- By: Steven Brill
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this revelatory narrative covering the years 1967 to 2017, Steven Brill gives us a stunningly cogent picture of the broken system at the heart of our society. He shows us how, over the last half-century, America's core values - meritocracy, innovation, due process, free speech, and even democracy itself - have somehow managed to power its decline into dysfunction.
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Shorter would have been Better
- By Joseph on 06-12-18
By: Steven Brill
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What Were We Thinking
- A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era
- By: Carlos Lozada
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself.
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Useful book
- By Kindle Customer on 11-22-20
By: Carlos Lozada
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The Hidden History of American Oligarchy
- Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.
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Contains much needed for this country
- By Roy Roebuck on 03-14-21
By: Thom Hartmann
What listeners say about Dark Money
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mark
- 05-29-16
Fact attack
This clever and revealing book exposes the extent to which a few mega-rich families in the United States cynically manipulate and control the political machinery in order to increase their profits. Their overriding goal is to minimise the role of government. This involves reducing taxes and encouraging free, unregulated trade. In their ideal world, social welfare programmes would be eradicated or stripped to the bare minimum, and there would be no environmental regulations placing restrictions on polluting industries. For example, they invest a lot of money in spreading seeds of doubt about global warming being caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
What’s good about this book is that it succeeds in presenting mountains of evidence of this manipulative activity, which has gone on for decades and is continually increasing in intensity. Huge sums of money are spent in subtle and strategic Machiavellian ploys to achieve these goals. It will leave you in no doubt that America is controlled, or at least heavily influenced by, unscrupulous, greedy, selfish elites who care only about money, power and perpetuating their dynasties.
What’s bad about this book, aside from the fact that it is depressing and leaves you feeling powerless, is that it is just a succession of facts, one after the other. It’s really hard to maintain concentration because it is like listening to a shopping list of 247 items. They may be accurate, they may be damning, they may represent extensive investigation and research by the author, but these things alone do not an entertaining listen make – and this is nothing to do with the inadequacies of the narrator – she is very good.
I stuck with it out of a sense of the worthiness of the material – the world does need to know that this is happening – but it was hard work and my concentration strayed frequently. I feel bad saying this because it’s an important work and I don’t want to discourage people from listening, but it isn’t a lot of fun.
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109 people found this helpful
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- Walt C.
- 02-04-16
Scarier than Pet Cemetary
Would you listen to Dark Money again? Why?
I don't know...it scares me. I listen to this for at least an hour per day while at the gym.It doesn't keep me awake, too long, at night but everyday I get another dose of why I fear for this country. It is clearly controlled by the wealthiest among us for their own purposes. Every day I learn of another reason why.
What did you like best about this story?
It's non-fiction. Interesting question, what did you like best? Let's see, that this proves the country was bought by the mega-wealthy? No, that's not a 'best' item. That it is a call-to-arms for everyone other than the 0.1% to tell our elected officials, especially in Congress, what it will take to keep them in office.
Have you listened to any of Kirsten Potter’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, I haven't but I am willing to see what else she'll read to me.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me fear for this country's future. With Citizens United there is a real risk to democracy as we were taught in school, a very real risk.
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48 people found this helpful
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- Adam Hall
- 03-03-16
care about democracy? read this book.
Mayer devastates readers with a monumental expose' on the true power of the Kochtopus. Beware, you will cry tears of frustration and powerlessness. Everyone needs to read this book if they care about the future of democracy around the world.
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7 people found this helpful
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- E. Crist
- 02-17-16
Read and learn about American plutocracy.
Mayer lays out in stark detail how America has allowed vast wealthy interests the means to purchase our politics. Read and despair.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Therrm
- 01-31-16
Republican Party?
More like Republican Puppets. Everyone knows there's shenanigans in politics; but what Jane Mayer describes is repugnant. To think these people think THEIR way is the right way.
Bet my last dollar they were the last kids picked on anyone's team.
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3 people found this helpful
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- AJ
- 11-14-17
EXCELLENT; informative; and deeply troubling!!!
Sadly, this book confirms some of my suspicions about the deep-pocketed controls over our politics, society and soon the everyday experiences, comfort and likely suffering of the majority of American citizens residing in the US as well as other members of the poor and middle-classes worldwide. Our days in the sun may be numbered.
Still, an excellent, educative and surprisingly detailed account that is well-read and absolutely worthy of a careful listen.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND, "Dark Money".
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ashley P.
- 11-01-17
super depressing
Honestly I loved this book but it is incredibly depressing that so few people can have so much power. It's unfortunate that we have allowed this to happen in our country with Citizens United being implimented and other laws, like the Fairness Doctrine, being repealed. I hope that with the current presidential administration, people will see that the rich and powerful do not deserve to have this power because they can't treat their fellow humans with basic dignity and respect.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jerichopix
- 11-06-17
Evil
A brilliant and frightful revelation of the Koch brother's unspeakably evil empire. Listen to it now!
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1 person found this helpful
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- K P
- 09-24-17
Incredible informative
Excellent research and writing. A very sad story of what the real America has become.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jerry
- 03-17-16
An Eye Opener!!<br />
I knew the rich were involved in the elections but had no idea how deep answer sophisticated they had become.
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