Birchers

February 13, 2023
Historian Dallek (Defenseless Under the Night) argues in this comprehensive and enlightening account that the John Birch Society’s organizational and political model catalyzed a decades-long radicalization of the modern Republican Party. Named after an American missionary killed by Chinese communist forces, the Society was founded in 1958 by “a small band of anti–New Deal businessmen” under the leadership of retired candy executive Robert Welch. Dallek details a steady program of expansion in the 1960s on the back of innovative organizing strategies, including the use of high-profile, single-issue campaigns to attract new members. With growth, however, the secretive pragmatism of the earliest Birchers gave way to public outbursts of wild-eyed conspiracy mongering. Though the Society’s influence faded in mid–1970s, its conspiratorial style and staunch opposition to federal regulations were taken up by conservative media outlets and activists like the Koch brothers (whose father was a founding member), giving rise to a “toxic fringe” that “eventually cannibalized the entire party.” Dallek sheds valuable light on the Anti-Defamation League’s efforts to infiltrate the Birchers, and incisively analyzes how establishment Republicans’ attempts to “hav it both ways” by relying on the support of rank-and-file Birchers while distancing themselves from the group’s “racism, antisemitism, and conspiracy thinking” backfired. This is a treasure trove for political history buffs.

Starred review from January 15, 2023
Historical study of the resentful figures who helped take over one of the world's oldest political parties. Any student of American political culture is aware of the John Birch Society, and few can dismiss the impact of this fringe group on current national politics. Founded in 1958 by Republican Robert Welch, the organization laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's capture of the Republican Party. From the beginning, Birchers have maintained a witches brew of hyperpatriotism, anti-communist paranoia, religious moralism, racism, antisemitism, violent invective, apocalyptic conspiratorial fantasies, and "raw hate." In addition to an astute history of the John Birch Society, Dallek, a professor of history and political management and the author of Defenseless Under the Night and The Right Moment, examines its heirs, including Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, Alex Jones, the tea party, and, of course, Trump. The author makes an irrefutable case that the JBS "did more than any other conservative entity to propel this extremist takeover" by Trump, et al. While written in the typical uninflected voice of contemporary histories, the book effectively demonstrates how one can "see, in COVID denialism, vaccine disinformation, America First nationalism, school board wars, QAnon plots, and allegations of electoral cheating, a movement from the 1960s, long thought dead, casting its shadow across the United States." Though the "Birchers were hardly the only movement that helped to radicalize conservatism and the Republican Party," Dallek credits the JBS with stoking the proliferation of "a host of canny successors that put extremist themes, ideas, and techniques into general circulation." The author's freshest discovery is that the Anti-Defamation League skillfully succeeded in infiltrating the JBS as "part of a sprawling, informal coalition seeking to discredit the Birchers"--even if it failed to eliminate the poison that continues to infect the GOP. A timely, critically important contribution to the history of our present political and constitutional crisis.

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