The Dangerous Roots of Americans for Prosperity
AFP is Not the "Conservative" Group It Pretends To Be...Here's How The Uniparty Controls Their Opposition
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a 501(c)(4) organization whose mission is to “empower every American to pursue their version of the American Dream.” They have 36 state chapters and over 140 offices across the United States. The South Carolina chapter is extremely active among state politics. But what is AFP and what do they actually do?
Backed by the Koch Brothers
Charles and David Koch’s father, Fred Koch, made his fortune through his Rock Island Oil and Refining Company, which was inherited by his sons who renamed the company Koch Industries.
Charles and David Koch have created, controlled, and financed several “conservative” groups over the past several decades. For example, the brothers established Citizens for a Sound Economy in 1984 with Ron Paul as their first chairman. Citizens for a Sound Economy was eventually renamed FreedomWorks (dissolved in May 2024) and the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation became Americans for Prosperity in 2004. Additionally, Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute and their father was also a founding member of the John Birch Society.
The Koch brothers were highly involved in funding the Tea Party movement which (according to this study) they helped developed starting in the 1980s through Citizens for a Sound Economy along with several tobacco companies to “create the appearance of broad opposition to tobacco control policies by attempting to create a grassroots smokers’ rights movement.” Most of the public believe that the origins of the Tea Party began with anti-tax protests in 2009. However, this study reveal that the Kochs and CSE “designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com” in 2002.
More recently, the Charles Koch Institute joined forces with the Anti-Defamation League, the Soros Charitable Foundation, and several tech giants to “to make sure that arbitrary censorship by Big Tech monopolists becomes normalized heading into 2020’s Presidential elections.”
AFP Pushed to Certify Biden as President-Elect in 2020
On January 5, 2020, Brian Schwartz from CNBC reported that Americans for Prosperity encouraged “Congress to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.” This stance came around the same time with Koch “publicly congratulating Biden for his victory” after Koch refused to help Trump with his re-election campaign and launched a multi-million dollar campaign against Trump’s tariff policies in 2018.
This is not unusual for AFP, as they announced in 2019 that they would be actively backing Democrats “as long as they support some of the networks proposed policies.” AFP seems to adopt the age old “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” philosophy.
AFP - South Carolina
AFP’s South Carolina chapter is one of the biggest cheerleaders for the uniparty in both the national and state-level political ring.
During the 2024 Presidential Republican primary, AFP Action endorsed South Carolina’s Nikki Haley while pledging to spend tens of millions to “help push the Republican Party past former President Donald Trump” and immediately put $27 million behind this new campaign. This came as a shock to many conservatives in the state, as Nikki Haley supporters are few and far between in her home state where she served as Governor from 2011-2017. After Haley’s huge loss in the South Carolina Republican Primary in February 2024, AFP Action senior adviser Emily Seidel (who is also the President of AFP) announced that AFP Action would be pulling their funding from Haley’s campaign but would continue to endorse her.
In South Carolina, AFP releases an annual legislative scorecard that never fails to give the Republican establishment scores over 100% to seemingly thank them for continuing the uniparty agenda. Some of the bills AFP used as a metric to score state legislators during this past session included some of the most heinous threats to freedom that the South Carolina General Assembly has ever seen. Here are some examples of tyrannical bills that AFP supported and used in their scorecard metric:
The Health Czar Bill (S.915 and H.4927) - This bill created a new office for a “Dr. Fauci” of SC that has no qualification requirements and would usurp power from the Governor and General Assembly. Learn more about this bill HERE.
Children Vaccination without parental consent (H.3988) - This bill removes the prohibition on pharmacy technician’s to administer a vaccine, authorizes a pharmacy technician to administer vaccines, lowers vaccine recipient age to 16 years old without parental consent, and allows a “caregiver” to bring a child of any age to be vaccinated. This bill was passed in the last legislative session and further undermines parental rights. Learn more about this bill HERE.
School Choice (H.5164) - This bill is the second installment of the Education Scholarship Trust Funds (also known as ESAs) and would incapsulate homeschoolers. If passed, this bill would allow the government to give homeschoolers $6,000 but as we all know, what the government funds, it controls. This would be the foot-in-the-door for the government to institute more red tape and control over what and how homeschool parents choose to educate their children. Learn more about this bill HERE.
Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
From the outside looking in, AFP seems to be a group that helps get Republicans elected. It is not surprising that many South Carolinians are hood-winked by this well-established organization. However, we must keep a vigilant eye on organizations controlled by uniparty actors such as the Koch Brothers and George Soros.
AFP loves to help their endorsed candidates into office in order to use them for favors and votes on their preferred legislation later during session. We have watched this plan unfold after every election cycle. It is my hope that this article serves as a warning to newly elected officials and the constituents of South Carolina: AFP is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Dang, I needed a good laugh today. These two articles were the ticket to a good laugh.
This is so weird to see an article written about AFP by a group of people who have worked so closely with AFP in the past. Does Evan Mulch harbor resentment towards The John Birch Society? Didn’t the Koch brothers help found the organization he lived and breathed for so many years. Or is it the South Carolina Freedom Caucus is to radical and conservative for AFP?