John Baumbach

“Some forty other Tea Party and antitax groups also clamored for all-out war. Among the most vociferous was the Club for Growth, a small, single-minded, Wall Street–founded group powerful for one reason: it had the cash to mount primary challenges against Republicans who didn’t hew to its uncompromising line. The club had developed the use of fratricide as a tactic to keep officeholders in line after becoming frustrated that many candidates it backed became more moderate in office. It discovered that all it had to do was threaten a primary challenge, and “they start wetting their pants,” one founder joked. Its top funders included many in the Koch network, including the billionaire hedge fund managers Robert Mercer and Paul Singer and the private equity tycoon John Childs.”
― Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

“Advancing the agenda of America’s wealthiest winners under such circumstances would ordinarily be a hard sell. After all, in 2011, twenty-four million Americans were still out of work. The Great Recession had wiped out some $9 trillion in household wealth. But after forty years, the conservative nonprofit ecosystem had grown quite adept at waging battles of ideas. The think tanks, advocacy groups, and talking heads on the right sprang into action, shaping a political narrative that staved off the kind of course correction that might otherwise have been expected.”
― Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

“But fascist rule is more nakedly dependent on charisma than any other kind, which may help explain why no fascist regime has so far managed to pass power to a successor.”
― Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism

“Understanding that I had been placed in a position where I could either just play the Mandate’s game”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alien Clay