When Gov. Doug Ducey headed off to spend time with the billionaire Koch brothers and their high-dollar donors at a resort, I wondered what that meeting was like. Here is my best guess.
Douglas Anthony Ducey, Koch-appointed-procurator of the state of Arizona, paced in the great castleโs reception area while his chief adviser, Lord Adams, waited by the great door for word that they would be seen. โShouldnโt be long, my lord.โ
The mighty doors swung open. Adams and Ducey jumped back. A voice bellowed, โOur majesties will see you now. Just the governor.โ Ducey could see the Great Industrialist Overlords, the Koch Brothers, lit by torchlight, seated on their thrones at the end of the crowded hall, dark-money dragons curled about their feet, grinning in the shadows.
The cathedral-like hall was packed with โunseenโ potentates, patricians and plutocrats, come to beseech their overlords for relief and reinforcements. Ducey strode past them all, knelt at the feet of his sovereigns and pressed his meaty clenched fist into his breastplate. โMy lieges.โ
The Koch on the left yawned. โArise, governor. What news do you have from our beloved colony โ what is its name?โ
โArizona, my lord.โ
โYes, Arizona! Are you worth every penny of the $1.4 million we spent to buy you the governorโs throne in that wretched wasteland? What do you have to report? Well?!โ
โEverything is going according to plan, my lords.โ
The Koch on the right snarled, โOh, really? Have you shrunk your government down to a size where we can drown it in a bucket?โ The dragons laughed, baring their luminous green teeth.
โWe are making progress, my lords. We are crushing public education. Teachers are fleeing. We are raiding the state lands trust to pay for schools, and the education-starved mob thinks I am their savior. We have cut services at every turn. We are building more dungeons. Every agency has felt my knife at their throats. Ask vocational training. I say if the peasants want training let them go to prison and sew leather bags. Our utility regulators are utility lobbyists, weโve muzzled hearings and hark, my lords, we passed a budget in the dark, by torchlight, while the peasants slept! Our budgets are crushing the cities and towns under our heels โ with fiscal starvation! My lords, we have robbed the peopleโs treasury and we are giving it to the rich!โ
Cheers filled the hall.
โWeโve filled posts all over Arizona with servants loyal to you, my lords. Everyone from my chief adviser, Lord Kirk Adams, to the new justice I appointed to a lifetime position on our state Supreme Court, Lord Bolick from the Land of Goldwater. Theyโve all had Koch gold in their pockets.โ
Charles Koch belched and tossed a turkey leg bone onto the floor. โYour Legislature is a circus of tea-party stooges, know-nothings and do-nothings! They may as well be replaced with a rubber stamp. How delightful! And the peasants. What of them?โ
โWhen it comes to poverty, we are the third poorest, behind the fiefdoms of Louisiana and Mississippi.โ
โCongratulations, governor. And tell me, what is the future of our beloved colony?โ
โWeโve gerrymandered every district in Arizona! The future is secure.โ
โAnd the voters?โ
Ducey smiled and tapped the hilt of his sword. โThey are incurious, fickle ... ignorant of history and happy to parrot whatever ill-informed opinions our minions spout. I tell the peasants Iโm sprinkling magic trickle-down fairy dust on Arizona every day and then I arch my eyebrows and promise the fools that any day now corporations will be pouring into our fiefdom, bringing jobs and gold. Arizona is ours for as long as you wish, my lords.โ
The dark money dragons sat up. Green smoke curled out of their nostrils up to the rafters. The foul stench of plutocracy filled the great dark hall.
A Koch sniffed at the sky and swept the air in front of him. โYou may go.โ Both Kochs extended their bejeweled right hands, clenched into fists. Ducey knelt and as he kissed each ring, then each fist opened and dropped a gold doubloon into his outstretched hand. Ducey stood, pocketed the regal mementos and bowed. โYou must come and visit your colony sometime, my lords. Itโs quite the Third World banana plantation. You had best be armed.โ
Gov. Ducey turned, marched into the sunlight and rode off in the direction of the desert shires of Arizona. Behind him, back inside, the dark-money dragons slept soundly as the Kochs, from atop their thrones, called for a time of joyous celebration.
