Today, the Democratic Governors Association sent out a blast email suggesting that higher taxes on high-income earners was justified because it would target the Koch brothers. This is how low the left now stoops: they think that hurting the economy is fine, so long as those most hurt are opponents of President Obama. Here’s the text:

Friend,

Republicans lost the 2012 election, but you wouldn’t know it based on their attitudes this week.

John Boehner and Congressional Republicans rejected outright President Obama’s proposal to avoid across-the-board tax hikes on all Americans. Boehner is willing to hold the middle class hostage to protect the wealthiest 2% -- people like the billionaire Koch brothers, who spend millions of dollars every year attacking Democrats.

If Congress doesn’t get its act together by next week, families like yours would be on the hook for $2,000 or more in taxes. It just doesn’t seem right, and it isn’t.

This is hardly the first time that Democrats have targeted the Koch brothers, just because the Koch brothers – owners of Koch Industries, which employs thousands of Americans across the country – happen to disagree with the Democrats about economic policy. President Obama’s re-election campaign targeted the Koch brothers repeatedly.

This is a typical bully tactic of the left: ram through liberal legislation by specifically targeting non-lawbreakers who happen to disagree. It serves a twofold purpose: demonizing the opposition, and using that demonization to leverage issue preferences through a compliant American public.

The Koch brothers should not be the reason Americans have to pay higher taxes, or see their jobs disappear thanks to higher taxes on others. Only the Democrats would be that shortsighted.