July 19, 2023

JBS BS: The John Birch Society

36 minutes

EPISODE 89 | JBS BS: The John Birch Society

History is full of those who became tyrants or aspired to become one. Even in a country like the United States in the fairly enlightened 20th century, there were those who thought that, well, actually, their vision of how things should be was the best one, and that they should probably just be in charge. And if you opposed them, they said all sorts of disagreeable things about you. And sometimes they just outright lied.

Welcome to the John Birch Society, where anything and everything goes in the life and death struggle against international Communism. And they are kind of the foundation of today's far right.

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SECTIONS

02:10 - Candy-Coated Commie Hater - Candy maker Robert Welch Jr. was a smart guy, but also a hardcore Baptist and rabid anti-Communist

04:37 - Birch the Baptist Spy - Angry Baptist zealot John Birch became a spy in China during WWII, getting killed by Communists just after Japan surrendered; Welch was inspired, founding the John Birch Society in 1958 along with Fred Koch, Robert Waring Stoddard, Harry Lynde Bradley and anti-Semite Revilo P. Oliver, who went pretty much full Nazi later on

09:32 - Red Scares - Marxism's beginnings, the First Red Scare (1919-1920), bans and deportations, the Immigration Act of 1924, the Second Red Scare (1947-1958), loyalty oaths, the Communist Party outlawed, the Black List

15:04 - JBS BS - Conspiracy theories aplenty, America was "great" in the year 1900, created the water fluoridation freakout, Dr. Strangelove, membership grew while Welch got weirder, other far righter groups not so supportive, Barry Goldwater set the stage for Reagan, the Soviet Negro Republic pamphlet

23:28 - Go Your Own Way - The Birchers started to lose supporters in the 70s and 80s, the ultra-conservative US Taxpayers Party splits off and then becomes the Constitution Party, the American Heritage Party split from them and then became the Christian Liberty Party - both foundational to the Tea Party movement

29:48 - Fellow Travelers - Jim Gilchrist is a fan of the American Heritage Party, so is Alex Jones lapdog Jerome Corsi, who eats heartily from the conspiracy buffet; the JBS pushes Agenda 21 CTs, keeps records on political voting records; some think Trumpism is basically Bircherism

Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info:

Who Was John Birch? - 1961 Time Magazine article

Robert Welch, Founder of Birch Society, Dies at 85

The New American (the JBS magazine)

JBS Freedom Index

The Constitution Party website

Christian Liberty Party website

America at the Turn of the Century: A Look at the Historical Context

The John Birchers’ Tea Party

Tea party: Dark side of conservatism on Poltico

The Tea Party, the John Birch Society, and the Fear of "Mob Rule"

The Tea Party Movement as a Modern Incarnation of Nativism in the United States and Its Role in American Electoral Politics, 2009-2014 paper

The John Birch Society Is Back

Flight from reason - Thomas Patterson looks at the threat to Democracy in ‘How America Lost Its Mind’

Today’s right-wing conspiracy theory mentality can be traced back to the John Birch Society

Today’s Paranoid Right Has Surpassed the John Birch Society

It Didn’t Start with Trump: The Decades-Long Saga of How the GOP Went Crazy

How the John Birch Society radicalized the American Right

The fringe group that broke the GOP’s brain — and helped the party win elections on Vox

American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy by David Corn

Robert Evans's Behind the Bastards podcast

Behind the Bastards episodes about the John Birch Society: Part One & Part Two

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