Regarding the radicalization of the GOP: The John Birch Society

The best propaganda is that which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandists initiative. -- Joseph Goebbels

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

CONTEXT

As some people here probably know I was banned from 9 right wing politics sites for speaking inconvenient truth in ~2015-2017 and one in Feb. 2023. Back in the days before the GOP radicalized, I used to have respectful, rational discussions with old-fashioned conservatives who still believed in democracy and that an inconvenient fact was still a fact, not a lie. I thought that ended in ~2005-2006. The old-fashioned conservatives seem to have just melted away. Maybe most were RINO hunted out and banned like me. Maybe some were scared into silence and/or radicalized somehow. I'm not sure what happened, but something did happen. The rise of the JBS makes a lot of sense. 

One observer commented that what I was referring to was the rise of the John Birch Society (JBS) in the GOP. The the JBS took over and hijacked Republican Party elites and leadership, with few Republicans having even a clue about what had happened. It's all the same agenda and talking points from a few very wealthy people. They took over the GOP to use as vehicle for their own authoritarian right wing extremism views. All the that the extremists had to do to pull it off was change their name to the Tea-party and start up a propaganda mill promoted as "think tank" to convince people they're right and a news channel to promote radical authoritarian JBS propaganda.

Joseph Coors and the Koch Brothers father were founders along with heir to Brach candy. Early financial supporters of JBS included Rupert Murdoch and Fred Trump.

The JBS scheme to take power is very clever and effective. Joseph Coors founds the Heritage Foundation to be propaganda mill for JBS agenda's under guise of being a "think tank." The intent was to influence public opinion to accept JBS agenda as truth. Murdoch's Faux News presented and promoted the propaganda as legit and praises Heritage Foundation as something people can trust. Republican politicians who says they supports JBS propaganda gets a campaign donation from the Koch brothers. Maybe the JBS/Tea Party figured they could influence a Presidential race and promote their own candidate. If so, there's the son of Fred Trump, Donald, the JBS could give a platform to and support. 

Eisenhower[1] and even Orwell warned of the dangers of the JBS fascist extremism. It's a political movement by the elites solely to serve the elites at the expense of democracy and the public interest generally. And here we are today with tens of millions of deceived people, arguably unreasonably gullible, helping them destroy democracy and civil liberties.

Vox wrote this in March, 2023:

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

As the historian Matthew Dallek documents in his new book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the Far Right, the group would go on to grow from a small club of far-right businessmen into a sprawling, nationwide organization that claimed up to 100,000 members across hundreds of state and local chapters. Over time, the John Birch Society would leave its imprint on the Republican Party, pushing it to embrace more hardline positions on anti-communism, white supremacy, isolationism, and nativism.

But according to Dallek, who studies the history of American conservatism at George Washington University, the story of the Birchers’ role in the radicalization of the GOP is a bit more complicated.

“What I’ve tried to do is to draw not too straight a line from the 1950s to today, and to show — as historians try to do — that the radicalization of the GOP was contingent,” Dallek told me when I spoke with him recently. The Birchers’ ideas “were not really ripe in 1970 or [the] ’80s or ’90s, but they became ripe in the past 15 years. They were there for the taking, and as we know, people took them up and ran with them in very powerful ways.”

They didn’t like democracy, and they believed the only way to save the country was through a kind of shock education — through controlling the kinds of texts that kids and college students and other Americans were exposed to — and through direct action: setting up front groups and committees that could attack what they saw as the weak points in the communist line.  

On some issues, the fringe and the Republican establishment aligned, especially on culture war issues. But most of the time, the Birchers and their successors were very frustrated. They loathed Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and some Birchers even said that Ronald Reagan was never to be trusted. On immigration reform, on internationalism, on military interventions, on free trade agreements, on conspiracy theories, and on the degree of explicit racism versus more coded or implicit racism, there were significant fissures.

So even though the fringe was part of the Republican coalition — especially during campaigns — we don’t want to oversell their power historically. The MAGA phenomenon is a more recent development, and I try to explain how our contemporary far right essentially adopted the Birchers’ ideological legacy as an alternative political tradition and eventually took over the Republican Party.  

The Birchers had a slogan that said, “We’re a republic, not a democracy. Let’s keep it that way.” That meant different things to different people, but they were quite opposed to the idea of multiracial democracy. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent comments and tweets about getting a “national divorce” and eviscerating the federal government — that does hark back to this Bircher idea that, “Hey, we’re a republic.”  

So I think that liberals forgot about the far-right opponents of democracy and of civil rights and voting rights. They were a more powerful presence than a lot of people acknowledged for many, many years — but now they’re easier to see.

That puts the timeline for BJS influence taking hold in ~2008. That must have been the radicalization I experienced in what I thought happened in ~2005-2006. Maybe my recollection of the time is off and maybe it was more like 2008-2009. 

It now makes sense why Trump and the other radical right authoritarian elites constantly refer to Democrats and liberals as communist tyrants, and why they dislike and attack democracy. That rhetoric and belief reflects core JBS dogma. It is inherently anti-democracy and civil liberties and pro-plutocracy-autocracy-kleptocracy, probably also significantly pro-Christian theocracy.

Q: Is it a real conspiracy or a crackpot conspiracy theory to think that JBS dogma and its conspiratorial mindset has had, and still has, a significant influence in radicalizing the GOP and in attacking and damaging democracy and civil liberties?

Footnote: 

1. The Financial Times writes:

You do not have to agree with Dallek’s thesis to find his book worth reading. The John Birch Society was founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, who having retired from his candy-making family business set about saving America from a red takeover. It was named after an American missionary, John Birch, who had been murdered by Chinese communists. Welch had the conspiratorial mindset of all such movement leaders. He thought Dwight Eisenhower, the then Republican president, was a communist agent, attributed the death of the alcoholic Joe McCarthy to foul play, and believed America was run by a cabal at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Intellectual consistency was never the Birchers’ hallmark. Their glue was belief in the hidden hand of plots, cabals and conspiracies against America. Birchers reviled John F Kennedy as another avatar of anti-American “one-worldism”. After JFK was killed in 1963, however, they saw the Warren-appointed inquiry as a cover-up for an alleged communist assassination. 

As is often the case, Welch combined an almost infinitely childish imagination with a ferocious organizing zeal. Bircher chapters were limited to 20 members apiece to ensure secrecy. Meetings were usually held in private homes. In that sense, Welch aped Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik methods. 

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Much of the Birchers’ story is instantly recognizable today. Welch urged members to build from the ground up by taking over school boards. One rallying cry was to give parents the right to veto immoral teaching, including sex education. Parents in Florida, whose governor, Ron DeSantis, has passed the “Don’t Say Gay” law that potentially criminalizes teachers, would find this familiar. Another goal was to abolish civilian oversight of police forces.

Bits: Media bias 1 and 2; Anti-GOP authoritarianism attack ad

Jim Hightower writes about media bias:

Here’s a story about media bias. Not the flagrant, pure propaganda that defines partisan outfits like Fox News, but the daily drip, drip, drip of slanted perspectives and loaded words that lard so many of the reports put out by establishment media outlets.

In particular, when these sources of supposedly “straight journalism” cover labor issues, environmental conflicts, consumer rights, tenant battles and such, they regularly slant their reports with corporate terminology, assumptions and viewpoints. For example, when auto workers launched their momentous national strike last week, so many mainline news stories were subtly-but-surely twisted to cast rich executives and shareholders as voices of reason victimized by union bosses.

Consider the Wall Street Journal’s Friday morning article announcing the UAW’s walkout. The story quickly plunged into an assertion by Ford’s CEO that the union’s leaders “refused to engage in a responsible manner.” In case readers missed this industry talking point, the Journal quoted another Big Three honcho four lines later, mouthing the exact same line. But… was the UAW really irresponsible, and—hello—could it be that the auto CEOs were the irresponsible players? The Journal didn’t inquire about these basic facts.

Then, the WSJ quoted a General Motors PR claim that it had “made an unprecedented offer to the union.” How grand! But “unprecedented” doesn’t mean good or fair. Was it? The paper offers no insight, though it does declare on its own that “a sharp increase in labor costs would come at a bad time.” Really? When would auto bosses and Journal editors consider it to be a good time for workers to get a pay increase? No follow-up to that obvious question.

The Journal also resorted demonizing UAW president Shawn Fain, gratuitously labeling him a “firebrand,” which the dictionary defines as “a person who kindles strife—a troublemaker.” A more honest depiction is that Fain—and the feisty UAW membership—are gutsy champions of economic fairness battling plutocratic greed. The actual troublemakers in this story are the auto chiefs and profiteers, along with their media protectors, who now assert that the autoworkers’ demands are “unsustainable.” The obvious question, as taught in beginning journalism classes, is unsustainable for whom?

Interestingly, while the Journal’s report portrays the autoworkers’ demand for a 40 percent pay hike over the next four years as an irresponsible ask, the paper doesn’t even whisper that the CEOs of this three trillion-dollar industry have recently pocketed 40 percent hikes in their take-home, now amounting to $21 million a year for Ford’s chief, $25 million for Stellantis’ boss, and $29 million for GM’s CEO.

This disparity is not secret information. Our little four-person Hightower Substack uncovered it with just a little digging. Media empires like the Wall Street Journal know the truth of it, too, but they’re in service to the existing hierarchies of power, even willing to abandon basic journalistic ethics to distort an inspiring news story of everyday people striving for a little more economic justice in our world.

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FWIW, a while ago I posted a bit about the Hunter Biden lawsuit that prosecutes him for illegally owning a gun for 18 days. The WSJ reported on it and failed to mention that the gun law was rarely enforced. This violation is so common that it is called "lie and try." Lie and try is when people lie about their illegal drug use when applying for a gun and hope they can get the weapon they want. In 2017-2018 12 people out of at least 13,000 lie and try violators were referred for criminal prosecution of that law, i.e., less than 1 in 1,000. An attorney commenting on this said that Biden would very likely not have been prosecuted if his last name was not Biden.

That is another example of what Hightower was arguing. Rupert Murdoch corrupted and subverted the WSJ, especially the opinion page which now operates as a fulminating authoritarian radical right Republican Party propaganda monstrosity. And that is why my WSJ subscription got dropped a few years after he bought it in 2007. 

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This is what the GOP has degenerated into.

Bits: DJT is a fibber; DJT getting jittery about time in jail; Racist USSC can undermine voting rights

Salon writes about what all of us already know, i.e., DJT is a chronic liar to tells whoppers all the time. The gigantic lie he is spewing now is that he is a "moderate" when it comes to abortion, despite him being the one responsible for getting rid of nationwide abortion rights:   

Trump is lying about his "moderate" abortion stance — he will ban it nationwide

Trump lies constantly, and history shows he and the GOP will repay evangelicals with a national abortion ban

This should be obvious, and yet, somehow, many in the press are being fooled by Trump's latest public posture about abortion, even though it's transparently dishonest. During his recent NBC News interview with Kristen Welker, Trump tried to strike a "moderate" pose on abortion. Referring to what the press misleadingly calls a "six-week" ban (it's really a two-week ban) on abortion in Florida, Trump said it was "a terrible mistake" for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign the draconian legislation.  

"We're going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it," he said, boldly claiming, "Both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you'll have an issue that we can put behind us."  

The pomposity of that statement should have been a reminder that Trump should be assumed to be lying about his abortion position, just as he lies about most things. And yet, much of the press took his statements at face value, even going so far as to report that he had angered anti-choice activists, which of course, only helps bolster Trump's false claims of moderation.

Once again, the cluelessness and/or subversion-complicity of most of the MSM is on display. The MSM is betraying us to deeply corrupt radical right authoritarianism. At least this reporter for Salon, Amanda Marcotte, sees and speaks actual truth.

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Rolling Stone reporting suggests that DJT is getting a bit nervous about a possible taxpayer paid vacation in prison:

IN THE PAST several months, Donald Trump has had a burning question for some of his confidants and attorneys: Would the authorities make him wear “one of those jumpsuits” in prison?

As the criminal cases against him have piled up, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner has wondered aloud in recent months about what life would be like if he’s convicted, and if appeals fail. While Trump publicly professes confidence [lying to the public, as usual], privately, three sources familiar with his comments say, he’s been asking lawyers and other people close to him what a prison sentence would look like for a former American president.  

Would he be sent to a “club fed” style prison — a place that’s relatively comfortable, as far these things go — or a “bad” prison? Would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement?

One can only hope for a “bad” prison, all appeals failed and no pardon.

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Radical right authoritarian Republican USSC 

continues attacks on voting rights and free and fair elections 

The USSC (US Supreme Court) is going to hear for the 2nd time a lawsuit about an illegal districting map in Alabama. The state lost in federal courts, including the USSC, and was ordered for the 2nd time to draw a 2nd voting district that would give black voters a chance to elect a black politician. The state legislature redrew the map, but it still contained only one district where a black could be elected. The case is now back to the USSC for a second hearing on the 2nd map.

Slate describes how the authoritarian radical right Republican USSC can now sanctify and bless the Alabama map with just one black district:

In last June’s Allen v. Milligan, the court explicitly upheld a lower court ruling ordering that a second such district be created. Alabama—led by Republicans in the statehouse—spent the last few months declining the court’s explicit instructions. The new maps were drawn with a single majority-Black district. The district court issued a furious rebuke. Now Alabama has come back to the Supreme Court in an emergency posture requesting a green light to use their still-illegal maps, claiming that the decision in Milligan didn’t in fact mean what it said it meant.

Why? Because in his concurrence in Milligan, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the determinative fifth vote in the case, signaled to the lawmakers that he’d be open to deciding the matter in their favor on a different theory that was neither briefed nor argued: Things might come out differently, he wrote, winkingly, if they came back armed with the argument that “even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting” under the Voting Rights Act “for some period of time, the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.” (He called the Voting Rights Act a form of “race-conscious redistricting” because it forbids states from diluting the votes of racial minorities, and measuring dilution requires consideration of race.) Alabama legislators reasonably think Kavanaugh’s in the bag based on “intelligence” that’s either an inside source or a straightforward reading of his Milligan concurrence. So they refused to follow the directives of the court in the hopes that in this go-round, they win.

Like with the climate deniers saying, “it's not climate change, it's just the weather” radical right Republican racists can say things like “it's not racism, it's just legal, rough and tumble politics.” 

I cannot understate how inimical and effective this USSC is and has been in gutting voting rights and free and fair elections. This is clear racist authoritarianism. Democracy with civil liberties, including voting rights, and a meaningful rule of law are high priority targets to be obliterated. People who cannot see the seriousness and urgency of the threat are far beyond sorely mistaken. Words fail me here.

The decision in this emergency filing should come fairly soon, maybe in the next month or two. For the 2024 elections, Alabama needs time to implement whatever map the radical authoritarians consider legal.

Trumplandia legal sagas: Attorneys suing attorneys

It's getting ugly out there ladies and germs. Rudi's attorneys are suing him for failure to pay his $1,360,196.10 bill. Naughty Rudi the Tooti Frutti. Here's some of the 8 page filing.

The summons

The heart of the matter

The signature page

It won't be long before we are all familiar with lawsuit filings. FYI, this case was filed in a New York Supreme Court. In New York, the Supreme Court is the lowest court. Trial courts include the Supreme Courts (unlike in the federal system), the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court, and the Court of Appeals, which is the court of last resort (similar to the Supreme Court in the federal system). That's ass backwards, but whatever.

Jeez, talk about a cheap law school with a crappy professor.