Trump 2.0 is the final victory of the John Birch Society
In 1958, a group of prominent business leaders founded the John Birch Society. Led by Robert Welch, inheritor of a vast candy fortune, these titans of wealth believed a vast communist conspiracy had penetrated the U.S. government.
In 'The Blue Book of the John Birch Society,' Welch presented an apocalyptic vision where politics was no longer a staid battle between the two political parties but a conflict 'between light and darkness; between freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of the anti-Christ for the souls and bodies of men.'
Welch claimed these non-Christians sought to replace Christianity with a 'pragmatic opportunism' governed by 'hedonistic aims.' He dubbed his followers 'God's Angry Men.'
What energized the Birchers was their belief that the U.S. government was engaged in a plot to strip Americans of their individual rights and impose a collectivist regime on an unsuspecting public. To them, the evidence was conclusive:
To accomplish his aims, Welch sought to recruit 'a million men' who would impose an American-style version of authoritarianism: 'The John Birch Society will operate under completely authoritative control at all levels. … We mean business every step of the way.'
The John Birch Society quickly grew to a membership of 30,000 with a staff of 240 employees and more than 400 bookstores across the U.S. with an annual income of $1.3 million.
Robert Welch attracted support from the middle class and the well-to-do. As Barry Goldwater noted, 'Every other person in Phoenix is a member of the John Birch Society. I'm not talking about commie-hunted apple pickers or cactus drunks. I'm talking about the highest cast of men of affairs.'
What made the John Birch Society popular was its appeal to conspiracists who saw the government as the enemy. Welch even went so far as to call Dwight D. Eisenhower a 'dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy,' a charge that infuriated Eisenhower.
Conservatives eventually came to despise the John Birch Society. William F. Buckley wondered how its members could tolerate 'such paranoid and unpatriotic drivel.'
Yet today, Robert Welch's dream of taking over the Republican Party and imposing an authoritarian-style regime has come to pass. Writing in The Bulwark in 2022, Robert Tracinski declared: 'The Birchers are back. And they're winning.'
Tracinski noted the signs of conquest were everywhere: a belief in 'the machinations of a secret cabal that controls everything from the intelligence agencies to the schools,' the 'rapid spread of crackpot theories to otherwise normal and respectable people,' the disarming of conservative critics as 'weak-kneed appeasers handing over the country to its enemies' and an 'uneasy balancing act of conservatives in the media and in politics who don't want to denounce the crackpots for fear of angering their party's base.'
Trump's second term has brought about the final victory of the John Birch Society. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy has incorrectly denounced vaccinations as causing the rise of autism in children, while claiming the measles vaccine has not been 'safely tested.' He has virtually dismantled the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been charged with demolishing that agency through the questionable use of a presidential executive order to fulfill Trump's promise to return education to the states 'where it belongs.'
The Birchers would be delighted with the virtual elimination of USAID and Trump's pause on all foreign aid, including suspending George W. Bush's President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief that has delivered medication to 25 million people in 54 countries.
The United Nations has become a place where Trump cast-offs like Michael Waltz are sent into exile.
Trump has installed Kash Patel as FBI director and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, where both are firing those they believe belong to the 'deep state.'
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is dismantling of the National Security Council staff, which one White House official gleefully described as the 'gutting' of the 'deep state.'
We are also witnessing the targeting of bureaucrats such as Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, whom Trump deems as 'egregious leakers and disseminators of falsehoods.'
Finally, we are seeing fluoride bans in public drinking water in Utah and Florida, with other states poised to follow suit.
No wonder one Bircher exclaimed, 'God has delivered Donald J. Trump to save the United States of America.'
John F. Kennedy once described members of the John Birch Society as those on the fringes 'who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan, or a convenient scapegoat.'
Trump's reelection has given Welch and the John Birch Society something they desired but never really thought imaginable: victory.
John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at the Catholic University of America. His latest book is titled 'Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.'
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