John Birch Society Radicalized American Right, 1950s -70s, Resurgence, 2010s: Communism, Conspiracy, Culture Wars
- 'A Historian Details How A Secretive, Extremist Group Radicalized the American Right,' NPR, May 16, 2023. Ed.
Matthew Dallek says the John Birch Society, which was active from the late '50s through the early '70s, propelled today's extremist takeover of the American right. His new book is Birchers.
Terry Gross: Today's political extremism has roots in the past. The organization that did more than any other conservative group to propel today's extremist takeover of the American right is the John Birch Society. That's according to the new book "Birchers: How The John Birch Society Radicalized The American Right." My guest is the author, historian Matthew Dallek.
The society was known for its opposition to the civil rights movement, its antisemitism, its willingness to harass and intimidate its political enemies and for spreading conspiracy theories. Communist plots were alleged to be behind many things the Birchers opposed, from the U.N., to teaching sex education in schools and putting fluoride in the water supply.
The group was founded in secret in 1958 by the wealthy, retired candy manufacturer Robert Welch, whose candies included Sugar Babies, Junior Mints and Pom Poms. The people Welch first invited to join the society were also wealthy, white businessmen, including the Koch brothers' father Fred Koch. Another decisive period for the American right is the subject of an earlier Dallek book called "The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory And The Decisive Turning Point In American Politics."
Dallek is a professor of political management at George Washington Univ. Dallek: The John Birch Society was a group devoted to fighting anti-communism that they said was inside the US. It, at its peak, had about 60,000 - 100,000 members, and it combined wealthy manufacturers and businesspeople and elites with upwardly mobile suburbanites. They viewed themselves, essentially, as shock troopers trying to educate the public about the alleged communist conspiracy that they said was destroying the United States...
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/17/1176662608/a-historian-details-how-a-secretive-extremist-group-radicalized-the-american-rig
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- (Wiki, ed). The John Birch Society is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and right-wing libertarian ideas. Originally based in Belmont, Mass., the JBS is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisc., with local chapters throughout the US. It owns American Opinion Publishing, Inc., which publishes the magazine The New American, and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy.
The JBS founder, businessman Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985), developed an organizational infrastructure of nationwide chapters in Dec. 1958. The society rose quickly in membership and influence, and also became known for Welch's conspiracy theories. His allegation that Eisenhower was a communist agent was especially controversial. In the 1960s, the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. & the National Review attempted to shun the JBS to the fringes of the American right. JBS membership is kept private but is said to have neared 100,000 in the 1960s and 1970s, declining afterward.
In the 2010s and 2020s, several observers and commentators argued that, while the organization's influence peaked in the 1970s, Bircherism and its legacy of conspiracy theories began making a resurgence in the mid-2010s, and had become the dominant strain in the conservative movement. They argued that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement. The JBS from its start opposed collectivism as a "cancer" and by extension communism and big government. Allegations that so-called "Insiders" have conspired to control the US through communism and world government are a recurring theme of JBS publications.
Welch promoted Americanism as "the philosophical antithesis of Communism." It contended that the US is a republic, not a democracy, and argued that states' rights should supersede those of the federal government...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society