Inside the Dems’ Dark Money Machine

Koch brothers
Photo by Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Theodore Schleifer
November 30, 2021

One of the more piquant aspects of my career has been watching the people I cover today learn from the people I covered years ago. It can sometimes feel like you’re seeing a new cast perform an original play with a novel spin on the script, like Mark Zuckerberg reinventing himself as a philanthropist in the mold of Bill Gates, or today’s tech leaders lobbying Washington in the mold of John Doerr. Over the last few weeks, however, I’ve felt some deja vu over a more bipartisan phenomenon, studying with amazement how the mega-donors of the left have perfected the playbook authored by their rivals on the right.