This week I’ll be talking with Matthew Dallek. He’s a professor at George Washington University and the author of the recently released book - Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. A book that could have been subtitled “This is How We Got Here.” It’s an extensively well-researched and timely book about one of the most important far-right groups of the past 100 years in America. Oddly enough, the Birchers don’t make it into much of the conversation about modern far-right extremism, even though the group’s messaging of hate and conspiracy form its backbone.
Rightwing broadcaster Alex Jones regularly cites the fact that his father was a Bircher as one of the reasons he does what he does and believes the wild conspiracies that he professes. Much of the conspiracy culture that exists on the Internet today has its basis in Bircher ideas from the 1950s and 1960s. that the Birchers published and distributed in their hundreds of bookstores across the country, such as None Dare Call it Treason, which argued that the reason America was “losing” the Cold War was because of communist elites in government and Hollywood.
The paranoia that there was a dirty commie lurking behind every door, on every movie set, in every government office (even President Eisenhower was not above being accused) is not much different from former president Donald Trump’s “deep state.” The purpose is the same—to build distrust in anyone, including your neighbors and family members, outside of your circle of fellow Birchers or MAGA members.
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