Well, this is awkward.
It may be a fading memory, especially now that Harry Reid has drifted off into retirement, but not long ago Charles and David Koch were the arch-villains living rent free in the heads of every low-info liberal in America.
Never mind that most who invoked them as the great puppeteers of the Tea Party movement couldn’t tell you the brothers’ first names, they just knew they were bad because that’s what they were told to know.
The Koch brothers did fund many Tea Party events, groups and activities, but were not the sole benefactors they were made out to be. I was a co-founder of the Los Angeles Tea Party and active in the movement until it stopped moving, and know this for a fact.
While always portrayed by the leftmedia as “conservative,” the Kochs are actually very libertarian. They supported same-sex marriage long before Barack Obama did. Most of their focus is on reducing spending and the size of government.
Facts be damned, however. They remain the monsters under the bed for those on the left who bitterly cling (see what I did there?) to false narratives. With that in mind, it’s easy to imagine how this news is being received by liberal lovers of movies in America.
Though they might be the most reviled figures among Hollywood’s liberal crowd, the Koch brothers have been a silent investor in Warner Bros.’ slate of movies for four years.
Sources say Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch — who are worth a combined $96.2 billion and wield enormous power in political circles as major backers of right-wing politicians — took a significant stake valued at tens of millions of dollars in RatPac-Dune Entertainment. Now-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brought the brothers in as investors as part of a $450 million deal struck in 2013 — a move that was never disclosed because RatPac-Dune is a private company.
How dare the right-wing devils support entertainment!
The New York Post’s Seth Mandel wondered how this would go over with some of the poor dears:
https://twitter.com/SethAMandel/status/895310466238599168
This is a reality that most Hollywood liberals never really think about. In their limited-exposure worldview, conservatives out in the fly-over provinces aren’t regular consumers of entertainment, they are just watching Fox News all of the time.
This is why scriptwriters have no qualms about including hackneyed liberal premises so often. It’s not that they seek to offend or influence, they just think all of the audience is liberal. Finding out that people who think differently are not only consumers of entertainment but financial backers as well runs counter to everything of which they’ve convinced themselves.
It’s kind of fun to watch.
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