Annotations for Speakers: Matthew Dallek

Thank you so much for having me and for the kind introduction.

It's a wonderful poem. I would love you to send it to me. I mean, it really captures, and I love your analysis of it. I mean, it really is one of the themes of the book, and frankly, one of the ideas that was so interesting to me as I did my research, which is that, you know, it's a puzzle, right?

How can, as I say, these colossi, men, the founders, especially, who, bestriding the world's most dynamic economy, how can they look at the country that, you know, basically gave them so much and say, you know, there are enemies who are overrunning us, and everything here is kind of twisted and distorted from within, and yet, you know, look how successful and powerful we are. And so that tension is really, it is a paradox, and I try to address it in the book.

Well, they do. Although, you know, it depends, I guess, on what one means by conservative, right? What is, and what does radical mean? You know, conservative, you know, at least in a kind of mid-20th century context for a lot of conservatives, did not necessarily mean conserving, did not mean conserving, let's say, the welfare state, or did not mean necessarily conserving, you know, U.S. foreign policy as it was defined in World War II or the early Cold War. It meant upending, right?

And so, but of course, the Birchers themselves, one of the reasons that I say that they were radical or ultra-conservative is that they had, believed in conspiracy theories, explicit racism, and isolationism, kind of hearkening back to early 20th century, the old right, and a more apocalyptic, violent mode of politics. And those things, and so their beliefs were really on the fringe and put them in a pretty radical place.

Yes, absolutely. So the Birchers, as big as they were in the 1960s, a kind of household name, you know, nowadays, right? They still exist, but, you know, they're kind of a shadow of their former selves.

So the Birchers were founded in December of 1958 by a former candy manufacturer named Robert Welch. And they were named after an evangelist-turned-army-intelligence-officer who was killed by Mao's communist forces 10 days after the end of World War II. He was seen as, this guy John Birch, seen as the first victim of World War III. And the society basically developed chapters, 20-person, capped at 20 people.

They started to spread all around the country. And they were devoted to, at least officially, educating the masses, the American public, about the internal threat of communists that, according to at least the Birch leaders, had begun to overrun America's institutions and was 60% or 70% on the way toward complete domination of American life.

Well, one thing that attracted the kind of elites, the industrialists, and the very wealthy people who joined, was that they knew Robert Welch. They knew people in the National Association of Manufacturers. They shared a hatred of the New Deal, a hatred in some of the cultural directions of American life, and a sense that the US should not have been involved in World War II or had lost the peace or had lost basically the war against the communists.

So they shared those kinds of personal and ideological sensibilities. For a lot of other Americans, sort of upwardly mobile, suburban professionals, as one Bircher said, the Birch Society is the, quote, answer to every anti-communist prayer.

What did he mean by that? Well, he meant, I think, that the society enabled people to take action in their communities against the communist menace. So instead of just talking about communism, instead of just lamenting that, you know, communists and their allies had made inroads, the society allowed people to act. And in fact, Robert Welch and the Birch Society, the headquarters, one of the innovative things they did is to give people, give members, opportunities to go out in their community and take over a school board or a PTA or, you know, protest Earl Warren or put stickers up.

So people felt empowered, right? They felt like they could actually do something. And that was one of the, I think, attractions.

The best estimates are 60 to 100,000 members in the mid 1960s, 64, 65, around the time of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign and shortly thereafter. But it's, you know, it's been hard for historians and contemporaries at the time to get a real handle on the numbers because, you know, the society was quite secretive about its membership. The membership was, I think, constantly in flux. As I said before, they had these small chapters. So it was really hard to track, you know, who was a member, who wasn't.

But it gives you a sense, you know, 60 to 100,000, not that many in a country with more than 100, well over 100 million people at the time. But as I argue, you know, they demonstrated that 100,000 or 60,000 of members who were devoted to a cause, who were willing to kind of volunteer their time, put themselves and their money on the line, could have an outsized impact on politics and on political debate in a way that maybe millions of voters could not.

Yeah, it's such an interesting moment. So one of the Birch societies, so the Birch Society actually very early on set up front groups. And the reason they did that was to kind of hide their tracks, so as to not let the communists, that was their thinking, right? Not let the communists know who was behind a particular action.

And impeach Earl Warren was one of the earliest in the early 60s acts that they undertook. But it was arguably the most effective or one of the most effective. And what they did was, is essentially launch a campaign using billboards. They erected billboards, I think, all across the country or many parts of the country. A lot of people did it at the local chapter level. I think I have one Birch member who helped fund 20 of these billboards. And these became a kind of iconic image of the time, because people saw them, right?

Remember, there was no social media in the early 1960s. And so, you know, people would see these billboards, it was talked about. And the idea of impeaching Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States, who was considered a giant, right, in American politics, he was governor of California earlier, and a giant in the judicial system, was really radical. And even some conservatives said, you know, that's going too far. The other point I'll make about it, though, is that what was kind of innovative about it, too, is that impeach Earl Warren. Well, what did that mean?

Well, for some Birchers and Birch supporters, it meant Brown versus Board of Education. It meant that Warren deserved to be impeached, because he had trampled on states' rights, and he had basically destroyed what they called the right, the freedom, to segregate by race in their states, in their towns. But to other people, also, it meant they did not like Warren's jurisprudence on banning prayer in schools, giving rights to criminal defendants. All of the kind of what we think of today as these sort of cultural hot-button issues. And impeach Earl Warren could encompass all of these pieces. And some were motivated by one piece, and others another. And it really was, I think, a powerful and memorable‚ and also Warren himself, apparently, was not a fan of this movement.

I mean, it's such a great question. And it's so interesting, too, because I read Slaughterhouse-Five many years ago, but I'd forgotten. I didn't remember that there was a Birch Society reference or a Bircher character in there.

The first thing I'll say is that it evokes the extent to which, in the 1960s, the Birchers penetrated the popular culture. And, Jeremi, earlier, you had asked, too, about, well, 60 to 100,000, not that many, but yet they had this huge impact. Well, people knew about them, right? Dr. Strangelove, one of the characters in there, Bob Dylan, did a song talking John Birch Paranoid Blues, Slaughterhouse-Five.

So you see the way in which it became like a cultural trope and both to be made fun of, but also to be supported. In terms of the post-war generation or the World War II generation, look, I think one point to make is that, as historians have argued for a long time, the 1950s were not exactly this harmonious consensus cultural era. There was no real hegemony within American society. There were deep divisions. And you see the Birchers, I think, coming out of not just World War II, but also the New Deal and, frankly, the Progressive Era, if we're going to go back further.

And they have a sense of a lost America, right, an America that had vanished. And it had vanished in part because of the growth of the welfare state, the encroachment, as they saw it, of civil rights, judicial intervention and overreach, and also the liberal internationalism, right, American engagement in the world.

One of their biggest slogans was get the US out of the UN. Well, that was born out of the World War II, of course, and the immediate post-World War II era. So I think it's a really perceptive question because they really were born, in a sense, and they were propelled by this sense that there had been decades of really big changes in the structure of American life, American politics, but also America's role in the world, and that those changes were fundamentally flawed and actually alien, right, that they were alien to the Constitution, alien to the country.

Birchers had a slogan that's apropos of your podcast, which is, we're a democracy, we're a republic, not a democracy, let's keep it that way.

And that, I think, evokes some of their mission. I can talk a little bit about, you know, comparisons to today, but- Well, there's such an obvious one there, of course, with certain individuals, for example, Senator Mike Lee from Utah today, who's made exactly, the words you used would be very familiar to him, that we're a republic, not a democracy.

I think that maybe that's one aspect of the book and kind of some of the themes of the book. I mean, Hofstadter, obviously, I mean, Hofstadter has to inform whether one agrees or disagrees with him. He's really seminal and he informs anyone who's writing about the modern American right. I tend to shy away from the use of the word paranoid in the book because, well, it's clinical and also it's pejorative. And what I also resist is trying to define the Birchers primarily through conspiracy theories, because at the time they were known for the, well, Robert Welch's, the Founder's Theory, that Dwight Eisenhower was a dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy. And that's a fluoridation of the water supply was a communist plot.

But, you know, as I argue in the book, the Birchers also tapped into other ideas. Now, conspiracies sometimes were woven through them, but not always. Right. Sex education in the schools. What was what were students learning? What were the books that were on offer in the libraries?

Isolationism, a more explicit form of racism than a lot of political actors at the time were used. And so, you know, and again, this more apocalyptic mode of politics. So conspiracy theories were were an element of it. And but I do think that it goes beyond that and that it has, you know, and Jeremi, this, of course, intersects with your work as well. Right.

These sort of much deeper roots in in American history and and a kind of, you know, concerns about sovereignty and nativism and and as I said, isolationism that and, you know, I think the Birchers kind of captured that as well. So, you know, I'll just say I don't want to reduce it right to a kind of paranoid conspiratorial style.

Yeah, well, I try to capture in the book what I see is a tension within the conservative coalition. So just to back up, right, I argue that there is a significant dividing line between these ultra-conservative fringe Bircher types and mainstream conservatives, the electorally successful figures actually ranging from Eisenhower to Goldwater and Reagan, and that that line was ideological and stylistic, and that they were actually antagonistic to one another oftentimes, that the Birchers and then their successors often distrusted and felt frustrated by these governing conservatives. And I try to capture that dynamic.

At the same time, I say, well, a lot of these conservative figures, we're talking about maybe the Bushes, father and son, Ronald Reagan, even Bob Dole, at times, especially during their campaigns, they did send signals to what I call these successors to the Birch movement. They sent signals that they were with them, right, that they were on their side, that they were going to champion their agendas. And yet, once they got into office, they often governed in a way that frustrated the fringe's most insistent demands. Immigration, for example, internationalism, right, interventionism in wars, free trade, conspiracy theories, right?

For the most part, people like Reagan did not govern in any of those ways. And in fact, not just the Birchers, but a lot of their, what I call their successors, were very upset with Ronald Reagan, especially in his second term. They looked at him as a sellout and a traitor. And as one Bircher said, and I think I quote him in the book, he said, you know, a true Bircher never really trusted Ronald Reagan. And they viewed him really ultimately as part of the problem. And so I think it was a kind of tense dynamic. But I think it's also a mistake to lump together these electoral conservative Republicans and the more fringier people.

Yeah, yeah. That's a really, yeah, the analogy is really powerful as you're describing it. That's true.

I mean, look, you know, if we go back, right, Richard Nixon, former vice president, went back to California, ran for governor and very forcefully denounced the Birchers. Well, what happened to him?

He got primaried by a guy named Joe Schell, who took about a third of the primary vote, was not a Bircher, but won the support of a lot of Birchers who were powerful in Southern California. And that really damaged Nixon. So Goldwater came along and had some critical things to say about Robert Welch, knew him, he was a problem. But as you said, right, he sort of said, you know, I know a lot of Birchers and they're fine people.

Reagan in 66, four years after Nixon, kind of split the baby right after Goldwater's landslide defeat, he issued a statement, he said, you know, Welch's theory is basically about Eisenhower. I reject those. But, you know, if a Bircher supports me, right, or they're buying my philosophy, not the other way around. So, you know, that is true, right, that they did. Although, you know, there were times, I mean, I don't want to go too far out here, but there were times when conservatives, especially in office, did, you know, they did not toe the Birch line. Right.

You know, even Ronald Reagan, for example, and George W. Bush, right, they signed renewals of the Voting Rights Act or civil rights laws. They, you know, when Reagan said, well, you know, Martin Luther King will know in 25 years if he was a communist. Well, he had to backtrack and he apologized for that.

He signed the law for reparations to Japanese Americans in turn during World War II. So, you know, you can go on down or George W. Bush, for example. You know, there were a number of instances in which major conservative presidents and other officials governed in ways that were not in sync with the Birch program or, and even on a lot of these culture war issues, you know, someone like Reagan or George H. W. Bush, they would somewhat cynically, especially for a Bush senior, they would go to Jerry Falwell's moral majority groups and they would say, you know, I support a ban on abortion or I'm going to, you know, pass a, let's do a constitutional amendment banning burning of the flag or restoring prayer in school.

But they never were able to get it done. And, you know, you see the ways in which they govern in ways that, you know, these, a lot of elements of the fringe did not support. And certainly, you know, when George W. Bush in his second term, when things went south for, for his presidency and he lost popularity, you know, you see people like Mick Mulvaney and, and Sarah Palin and Donald Trump in a sense who are rejecting him and rejecting and repudiating many of his policies and Rush Limbaugh.

Well, I argue that they bequeathed and they were not the only ones, of course, and there were, you know, groups in the 1930s, you know, as Father Coughlin or America First, right, and groups obviously before that as well. But the Birchers helped to update and sustain and forge what I describe as this alternative political tradition on the far right. And that even as the Birch Society as an organization peters out, right, it becomes basically a shadow of its old self by the early 1970s. And it's a real epithet at that time.

But some of those individuals in the society and even more importantly the ideas, as I've said before, isolationism, explicit racism, concerns about sovereignty that we would see make a comeback, this conspiracy theories, and again this more apocalyptic mode of politics, the idea that the enemy is within, those ideas, that set of ideas on the far right, I think that -- and also some of the hardline culture war issues as well -- those ideas kind of bubbled along, right?

They were picked up by what I argue are these even cannier successors. And there are a lot of other reasons why, you know, the far right sort of makes a comeback. And of course, it's not simply the Birch Society transferred to 2016, for example, but there was this kind of ideological legacy. And even if, you know, someone like a Donald Trump or a Sarah Palin had never heard of the Birch Society or if they had, they didn't know much about it, they picked up on very shrewdly in a way on a lot of the ideas that Birchers and their successors had sustained.

Exactly. I mean, that's extremely well put. And, you know, Zachary in his poem, I think, evoke this as well, that and this is one of the points I'm trying to make in the book, that this is a deeply American phenomenon and it's not just a conspiracy theories, right?

It goes beyond that. And because in the 1960s, the criticism, one of the criticisms lodged at the Birchers was that they were alien, right? As I think one senator at the time said, they're a weird presence in America. And, you know, my argument is no, actually they're not. They're deeply, they're kind of endemic to the country and to its traditions. They're not necessarily the majority of the country, but they're a powerful tradition. And I think it's a tradition that since, especially the New Deal and then the Great Society and civil rights movement that many people have thought, many, especially liberals, but also some conservatives too, a tradition had thought had really just been marginalized, right?

It was not possible to, there's no electoral support. And that's partly why a lot of conservative figures thought that, you know, if you do what Trump did and you call neo-Nazis fine people, as Trump did essentially, that you cannot, you know, you're not going to be elected. And so that assumption, of course, proved incorrect. And, you know, and here we are.

Yeah, well, I mean, or Florida, right, for that matter, right? I mean, some of the stuff about outbanning certain teachings, right, progressive teachings, the idea that, you know, these teachings are not just bad for kids, but you're actually indoctrinating them with a socialistic, woke ideas, right? I mean, as contemporaries would put it. Well, that's a similar argument to what the Birchers made in the 1960s. And, you know, your point, I think, is exactly right.

You know, someone like Trump does not have to be, doesn't have to be a historian of the far right. I mean, you know, the birtherism conspiracy theory, right, that somehow Barack Obama was not born in the United States and ineligible to be president, that he was an alien to the short, well, you know, that there were a lot of other people on the far right who were also pushing that as well. You know, Trump is very entrepreneurial, and I think he's, and he's very savvy politically, and he has picked up on and kind of tapped into a lot of ideas that had been simmering on the far right for decades.

Well, it's a great question. I think first, just an appreciation that the United States has faced anti-democratic movements in the past, and that these movements may not have been mainstream in the way that they are today, but that it is a kind of enduring part, right, of American life. And having that appreciation in and of itself, I think, is a little bit, I don't know if reassuring is the right word, but it does put in perspective, right, that, as you said so well, Jeremi, that, you know, Trump is not a sui generis, right, that we have seen these kinds of challenges before.

The other element, I think, and, you know, it's not quite a lesson because our times are so much different from the 1960s and 70s, but it is worth thinking about, and I actually wrote an article in the Atlantic Magazine about this, which is, you know, how do far-right organizations and far-right movements get constrained, right? The Birch ideas never died, but the Birch Society did fade. As I said earlier, right, it faded as an organization and as a movement by, certainly by the early to mid-1970s. Well, how did that happen?

A couple things. One is American institutions, government institutions, mass media, but also civic society, right, the NAACP, Americans for Democratic Action, most importantly the Anti-Defamation League. A lot of folks, a lot of groups, worked to constrain the Birchers, to really push them out in the fringes, to make them toxic in the political culture.

The other point I would make is that the Birch Society, I argue, especially in the late 60s, self-combusted, because its conspiracy theories in particular drew more violent and more bigoted members to the ranks. There was internal dissent, internecine warfare, and they also had some financial problems, and it was a very hard movement to sustain. It became incredibly fractious, and, you know, and it seemed more and more toxic, even to some of its own members.

So it's not a prescription per se, but it is worth thinking about, you know, look, maybe there are elements of MAGA that, you know, Trump's dinner, for example, with Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper, the anti-Semite, the white supremacist dinner that he had a few months ago. You know, there is a way in which I think Trump and MAGA has descended, and, you know, again, you don't want to make predictions, but one can see this kind of radicalization and descending that occurred, and, you know, that is, I think, a note, a faint note, but a note of hope.

I think that's exactly right, and the thing is, too, in mid-20th century America, even in the 1960s, you know, J. Edgar Hoover and others in law enforcement were more interested in trying to ferret out alleged communists in American society. They were less interested in going after, you know, far-right groups that may have promoted racism and anti-Semitism, and so it was even more important then for a group like the ADL to fill that gap, right, because it was a real void, and today, I think fortunately, at least under the Biden administration, for example, we have seen a Justice Department that has taken white supremacy and neo-Nazis and those threats seriously after January 6th, of course, and, you know, there are a lot of insurrectionists who are sitting in jail right now.

I mean, Zachary, I think your point is really powerful and, you know, thinking about trauma, but then what comes out on the other side. What gives me hope or optimism is the grassroots and kind of organic activism, especially among young people, whether it's March for Our Lives and the students at Parkland or, you know, people in support of voting rights, all the people who have gone out to vote in the last three national elections, you know, on the Dobbs decision and the reaction to that and these referendums that we've seen in even conservative states, right, where people are trying to define freedom as the right to choose, right, if a woman wants to get an abortion.

So I guess I am optimistic that democracy is incredibly fragile at this moment, as we've seen, and actually is a bit broken in many respects, but it is also resilient as well, and I think it's that kind of tension and may, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now, who knows, maybe it will be seen as stronger, to Zachary's point, because of the moment that we are living through now. I don't know, you know, that's maybe Pollyannish, but it's not inconceivable.

This was such a wonderful conversation. And thank you, Jeremi. Thank you, Zach. Your questions were terrific. So it's great to be here.