John Birch Society
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Added: 4/18/2025, 12:20:19 PM
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group.[1] Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist,[2][3] supports social conservatism,[2][3] and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and right-wing libertarian ideas.[12] Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, the JBS is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin,[13] with local chapters throughout the United States. It owns American Opinion Publishing, Inc., which publishes the magazine The New American,[7] and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy.[14]
The society's founder, businessman Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985), developed an organizational infrastructure of nationwide chapters in December 1958. The society rose quickly in membership and influence, and also became known for Welch's conspiracy theories.[15][16] His allegation that Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent was especially controversial.[17][18] In the 1960s, the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review attempted to shun the JBS to the fringes of the American right.[19][16] JBS membership is kept private but is said to have neared 100,000 in the 1960s and 1970s, declining afterward.[3][20][21]
In the 2010s and 2020s, several observers and commentators argued that, while the organization's influence peaked in the 1970s, "Bircherism" and its legacy of conspiracy theories began making a resurgence in the mid-2010s,[21] and had become the dominant strain in the conservative movement.[22] In particular, they argued that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party,[23][24] the Christian right,[25]: iv, 156–157 the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement.[26][27][28]
The John Birch Society from its start opposed collectivism as a "cancer" and by extension communism and big government.[29][30]
JBS publications referred to the fight against Communism as a spiritual war against the devil.[25]: iv, 156–157
Influence on conservatism
The JBS contributed to the development of modern American conservatism through its organizational tactics and its promotion of right-wing political views.[58] Despite never considering itself a religious organization, the JBS played a role in the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian right as major political forces, ideologically and tactically influencing multiple leaders in that movement including Tim LaHaye and Phyllis Schlafly.[25]: iv, 156–157 Scholar Celestini Carmen argues that LaHaye used the JBS's culture war methods and rhetoric of "fear, apocalyptic thought and conspiracy" to forge the Moral Majority, with "fear, anger, and disgust as essential ingredients."[25]: iv, 37, 156–157, 283, 322–325, 328–334 The historian D. J. Mulloy wrote in 2014 that the JBS has served as "a kind of bridge" between the Old Right (including the McCarthyites) of the 1940s–50s, the New Right of the 1970s–80s, and the Tea Party right of the 21st century.[29]
Professor Edward H. Miller wrote that Welch and the JBS were "never excommunicated" from conservatism and that "the ideas of the John Birch Society paved the way for the conservatism of the twentieth century" and "shaped events in the twenty-first century".[59]: 8–10 Miller also writes that JBS helped stop the Equal Rights Amendment and helped set the stage for the Reagan Era,[59]: 330, 347–351 while Mulloy writes that the JBS "played an essential role in the revitalization of conservatism"[60] and "trained a generation of conservative activists."[14] According to Professor Matthew Dallek, modern American conservatism "bear[s] the imprint of the John Birch Society,"[61]: 2 and "the GOP has largely replaced the ideological tenets of Reaganism with a worldview inherited from the John Birch Society (JBS)."[24] According to The Atlantic in 2024, Donald Trump's 2016 election "saw many of its core instincts finally reflected in the White House," and the JBS "now fits neatly into the mainstream of the American right."[62]
JBS took an early stance in opposing abortion and social liberalism,[59]: 347, 357–360 and its TRIM committees, which supported lower taxes, helped lead to the Reagan tax cuts.[59]: 361–64 [63] By the early 2020s, multiple commentators and academics argued that the John Birch Society and its beliefs had successfully taken over the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement.[27][26][64][65][28][66] Efforts of Moms for Liberty in the 2020s to influence public education in the United States via school board elections and book bans have been compared to JBS's efforts in the 1960s.[67][68] When introducing legislation to withdraw the U.S. from the UN, Senator Mike Lee used "some of the same arguments to support the bill" that the JBS "first employed."[69] By the 2020s, some national Republican and conservative figures openly associated with the JBS.[62]