{"id":14504,"date":"2018-12-06T02:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T02:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=14504"},"modified":"2018-12-07T02:38:41","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T02:38:41","slug":"the-john-birch-society-is-still-influencing-american-politics-60-years-after-its-founding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-john-birch-society-is-still-influencing-american-politics-60-years-after-its-founding\/","title":{"rendered":"The John Birch Society is still influencing American politics, 60 years after its founding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Towler<\/a>, California State University, Sacramento<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The retired candy entrepreneur Robert Welch<\/a> founded the John Birch Society 60 years ago to push back against what he perceived as a growing American welfare state modeled on communism and the federal government\u2019s push to desegregate America<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although Welch\u2019s group has never amassed more than 100,000 dues-paying members<\/a>, it had garnered an estimated 4 to 6 million sympathizers<\/a> within four years of its 1958 formation.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Robert Welch in 1961.<\/span>
\n AP Photo<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a scholar of political history and social movements<\/a>, I find many parallels between today\u2019s far right and its predecessors. Just as the John Birch Society emerged in the midst of the civil rights movement, today\u2019s far-right movements formed as a reaction to the election of Barack Obama \u2013 a milestone for racial equality. <\/p>\n

The Birchers<\/h2>\n

The original \u201cBirchers<\/a>,\u201d as John Birch Society supporters are known, were Republicans who believed their party had grown too moderate. Like the tea party movement<\/a> that arose half a century later while the nation debated expanding health care coverage, same-sex marriage and immigration reform, they objected to the federal government\u2019s growth, and ardently opposed federal intervention into what they considered to be state and local affairs.<\/p>\n

Birchers expressed a belief in domestic communist conspiracies. They went so far as to accuse President Dwight Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren<\/a> of being communist dupes and agents \u2013 building on the legacy of Sen. Joseph McCarthy<\/a> whose movement of predominantly Midwestern Republicans<\/a> found the society\u2019s agenda appealing.<\/p>\n

Although these allegations relegated Welch to fringe status<\/a> as a political leader<\/a>, the John Birch Society amassed a national base among staunch conservatives<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In their heyday, far-right groups<\/a> that subscribed to \u201cWelchian\u201d conspiracy theories propagated their views on over 500 radio broadcasts each week \u2013 with the John Birch Society alone producing a program on 100 stations<\/a> \u2013 and a widely circulated newsletter.<\/p>\n

A string of Birch bookstores<\/a> doubled as local headquarters<\/a> for meetings and distribution centers for fliers, films, rally tickets and bumper stickers, spread its influence.<\/p>\n

Even though Welch understood racism and bigotry would hurt his cause<\/a>, the John Birch Society\u2019s opposition to the civil rights movement attracted Americans sympathetic to racist paranoia. For example, it consistently published reports accusing civil rights leaders of communist subversion and alleging that people of color were plotting to divide the country and control the world.<\/p>\n

In 1964, backing from the John Birch Society in Republican primaries, such as California<\/a>, secured the right-wing-backed candidate Barry Goldwater\u2019s Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those little old ladies in tennis shoes that you called right-wing nuts and kooks,\u201d Goldwater\u2019s organizational head<\/a> reportedly told him about the campaign volunteers who appeared to be Birch sympathizers, \u201cthey\u2019re the best volunteer political organization that\u2019s ever been put together.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite Goldwater\u2019s loss to incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide, many political scientists<\/a> and conservatives<\/a> believe that Goldwater\u2019s failed bid made way for the modern conservative movement by passing the torch<\/a> to Richard M. Nixon\u2019s \u201csilent majority,\u201d ending decades of liberal dominance.<\/p>\n

Contemporary counterparts<\/h2>\n

The John Birch Society is also directly linked to conservative politics today.<\/p>\n

Most notably, Fred Koch, the father of David and Charles Koch<\/a>, was among the Birch Society\u2019s first 11 members and its main financial backers<\/a>. The billionaire Koch brothers have pumped massive amounts of money into libertarian causes<\/a> and conservative political campaigns<\/a> for decades.<\/p>\n

As investigative journalist Jane Mayer explains in her book \u201cDark Money<\/a>,\u201d Fred Koch strongly encouraged his sons to follow in his political footsteps, something Charles and David did<\/a> in general. For a time, both brothers belonged to the Birch Society, but they had moved on by the 1970s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Additionally, in their exhaustive examination of the tea party movement, political scientists Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto<\/a> argue that Obama\u2019s election instigated the rise of today\u2019s far right. Much like how the John Birch Society arose as a rejection of progress on civil rights, tea party supporters felt anxious about what they saw as the \u201creal\u201d America slipping away when the country chose a black man to be its president.<\/p>\n

Just as Birchers called Justice Warren a communist for overruling state and local segregation laws, the tea party labeled President Obama a socialist<\/a> because of his plan to expand health insurance coverage. And, similar to Birch Society claims that the civil rights movement was a treasonous ploy to divide the country, Trump and his surrogates paint the Black Lives Matter movement<\/a> as a force working toward the collapse of social order.<\/p>\n

Moreover, in 2017, as the Trump administration got underway, violent incidents involving white supremacists<\/a> and mass shootings<\/a> were becoming more common. Yet, Jeff Sessions, Trump\u2019s attorney general at that time, tasked the FBI with compiling a report on so-called \u201cblack identity extremists<\/a>\u201d with the \u201cpotential to incite irrational police fear of black activists<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Trump<\/h2>\n

From the start, Trump\u2019s incessant and loud questions about whether Obama was born in the U.S.<\/a> and his attacks on immigrants<\/a> echoed the Birch Society\u2019s<\/a> obsessions. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Tea party protest in 2010.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Mark Stehle<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By openly courting voters who had been tea party supporters<\/a>, Trump mobilized enough of the Americans who were anxious about their country\u2019s future to make it to the White House.<\/p>\n

Since taking office, Trump\u2019s far-right supporters have tolerated his efforts to delegitimize many political institutions, including the intelligence community<\/a> and the judiciary<\/a> \u2013 taking after the reactionary right 60 years earlier. By abandoning a traditionally conservative need for institutional stability, I believe that Trump echoes the John Birch Society\u2019s willingness to oppose uncomfortable change in society at any cost.<\/p>\n

Today, while much of the John Birch Society exists online and through its bimonthly magazine, The New American<\/a>, some conservatives are trying to reboot local chapters<\/a> of the nonprofit corporation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The society, which does not divulge<\/a> how many current dues-paying members it has, maintains it is not a political, but rather an educational organization. However, it welcomed the tea party with open arms in 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And, in a 2016 interview<\/a>, the group\u2019s CEO argued that Trump \u201ccaptured\u201d a movement built on the political causes the Birch Society had championed for decades.\"The<\/p>\n

Christopher Towler<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Political Science, California State University, Sacramento<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Towler, California State University, Sacramento The retired candy entrepreneur Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society 60 years ago to push back against what he perceived as a growing American welfare state modeled on communism and the federal government\u2019s push to desegregate America. Although Welch\u2019s group has never amassed more than 100,000 dues-paying members, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":14500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[500,5535,5534,5536,1539,1602],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14505,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions\/14505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}