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Far-Right Vanguard (w/ John S. Huntington)

🕑 Added 2022-07-30 17:19:53 +0000 UTC

Comments

Dan Anderson

I just listened to this episode again. I either missed it when it came out, or I was distracted while hearing it, because I'd forgotten how brilliant it is!! Amazing! Anyway, I'll join the chorus of comments suggesting that you guys put this one out, at least on spotify... People need to know! :)

Mark K

There was a great discussion of the Birchers on WBUR’s On Point recently. Key takeaways: Robert Welch’s us-vs-them attitude and paranoia may have stemmed from growing up in north NC where slave rebellions had taken place. In addition to the Krushchev visit, Birchers were upset with Eisenhower because he didn’t roll back New Deal policies or take back Eastern Europe. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/07/13/the-history-of-far-right-populism-from-the-john-birch-society-to-qanon

Xan Murphy

Wow! I grew up in Georgetown, TX, too. John has my head spinning about that confederate soldier monument in front of the Williamson co. court house. Funny how every year the whole town would come out for a Christmas parade and encircle the court house. I think that statue is still there…

Quackiavelli

I also think this should be open to all. It is really informative and gets at fundamental questions of the pod, like the role of intellectuals in the conservative party. I recently listened to Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home, which traces the rise of the White Power movement after Vietnam into the 1990s, and there are interesting connections. According to Belew, the White Power movement used the of idea Communism for as the enemy to target people of color, like a Vietnamese community in Texas who had actually helped the US army in Vietnam. This framing helped them gain sympathy from the public, including juries and the press. It often allowed them to get away with attacking people while dismissing race as a factor, and it helped them procure arms to build militias. The parallels between Belew's book and the ideas in the podcast are, to me, illuminating and disturbing.