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THREAD: Trump as Aberration? Why Lewis Lukens is wrong.
The view of Trump as a “mistake” or an “aberration” is mistaken. There is a great focus on the man – his mental health, various scandals and sensationalist statements. But in truth, Trump represents the latest 1/ https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1351282466166722562
The view of Trump as a “mistake” or an “aberration” is mistaken. There is a great focus on the man – his mental health, various scandals and sensationalist statements. But in truth, Trump represents the latest 1/ https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1351282466166722562
manifestation of a 70 year old tradition in US politics. Alex Jones – known gobshite – once described Trump as the John Birch Society president & as more John Birch Society than the John Birch Society. But what is the JBS? Let’s start by looking at its founder: Robert Welch. 2/
Welch was a confectionary salesman with a gift of convincing wealthy industrialists to give him money to promote anti-communist conspiracy theories. 3/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Welch_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Welch_Jr.
Welch believed that politicians such as Truman and FDR were communist stooges while Eisenhower was a secret communist agents. The UN was a communist plot that would lead to one world government. 4/
He founded the JBS with the support of some familiar names such as Fred Koch, Harry Lynde-Bradley and Revilo Oliver. Each of these men have had lasting legacies on both the “respectable” US conservative movement and white nationalist movements. 5/ https://theconversation.com/the-john-birch-society-is-still-influencing-american-politics-60-years-after-its-founding-107925
The official mission? To “teach the necessity of respect for the rights of persons and property as fundamental to every form of government...to teach the duty of government, to encourage and protect individual and group initiative and enterprise, to foster the right to work, 6/
earn, save and acquire property, and to preserve the ownership and lawful use of property when acquired”.
In practice, they mostly wrote pamphlets, columns and appeared to radio shows to promote their views. They ran a network of bookstores & organized rallies. 7/
In practice, they mostly wrote pamphlets, columns and appeared to radio shows to promote their views. They ran a network of bookstores & organized rallies. 7/
The JBS was anti-civil rights, pro-McCarthy, anti-Justice Warren, anti-Floridization, anti-China and anti-health and safety. All in the name of anti-communism. They were very popular. The Tea-Party of their day. 8/
Respectable Republicans such as William Buckley recognized the JBS as dangerous and proto-fascist. But this did not stop them from trying to use the movement to advance the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater. 9/
The campaign failed, but the tactical alliance between the Birchers & respectable Republicans fundamentally change the party. It paved the way for Nixon and Regan. Its fundamentalist "anti-socialist", extreme liberation rhetoric survives to this day. 10/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/
This is why it is dangerous to think that Trumpism or Bircherism will stop when Biden takes power. Trump was no aberration. Trumpists, like their parents & grandparents, grew up in a society where talk of communist/OWG conspiracies was normal. 11/
Consumers of JBS style material were encouraged to view liberalism (i.e. government working to address social issues) as tyranny. It was normal to describe attempts to encourage racial equality, improve health and safety conditions etc. as an evil. 12/
If you grew up in a household where radio-hosts discussing the possibility of Eisenhower as being an agent of the Illuminati was normal, then Q-Anon/Pizzagate/Covid-19 probably does not seem extreme. Or at least, not as idiotic as it seems to the rest of us. 13/
There is a need to recognize that while individual radicals and radical groups are serious problems, the underlying problem is much more serious. That problem is that pro-Trump/Brexit billionaires continue to fund lobby-groups, foundations, newspapers & television channels. 14/
The Mercers & Kochs of this world may not believe the racist conspiracies behind birtherism & the like, but they fund the groups that promote them because they serve to generate opposition to liberalism, socialism and social democracy. 15/
This has a beneficial financial effect for billionaires. The fact that individuals damage their societies for financial gain is regrettable. But what remains unforgivable is that after Trump and Brexit, 16/
there remains an inertia when it comes to disabling billionaires from inflicting similar damage in the future.
Check out the wonderful @bastardspod for more information:
17/17 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-the-john-birch-75193831/
Check out the wonderful @bastardspod for more information:
17/17 https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-the-john-birch-75193831/
