Poison Tea

“Reveals hidden connections between the tobacco industry, the reclusive billionaire [Koch] brothers, and the Tea Party movement. It’s a major story.” —Rep. Henry Waxman, former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

How did today’s Tea Party movement really come to be? Did it suddenly appear in 2009 as a spontaneous response to Barack Obama and health-care reform? Or was its true purpose and history something far different. Was it in fact a careful, strategic effort by two of the planet’s wealthiest individuals, the tobacco industry, and other corporate interests to remake the government and seize control of one of our two national parties, ultimately gaining both the White House and Congress?

Jeff Nesbit was in the room at the beginning of the unholy alliance between representatives of the world’s largest private oil company and the planet’s largest public tobacco company. There, they planned for a grassroots national political movement—one that would later be known as the Tea Party—that would promote their own corporate interests and political goals.

Drawing from his own experience as well as from troves of recently released internal tobacco industry documents, Nesbit reveals the long game that these corporate giants have played to become a dominant force in American politics.

“The hijacking of American politics by the Tea Party is one of the most important stories of our time, and Jeff Nesbit offers an inside account of how it happened. Poison Tea is compelling, richly reported, and utterly chilling.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“Poison Tea is essential reading for those interested in the inner workings of a key element of the conservative insurgency.” —Bruce Bartlett, BookForum