Edward H Miller Popular Books

Edward H Miller Biography & Facts

The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and right-wing libertarian ideas. Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, the JBS is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters throughout the United States. It owns American Opinion Publishing, Inc., which publishes the magazine The New American, and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy. 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. His allegation that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent was especially controversial. In the 1960s, the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review attempted to shun the JBS to the fringes of the American right. JBS membership is kept private but is said to have neared 100,000 in the 1960s and 1970s, declining afterward. 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, and had become the dominant strain in the conservative movement. In particular, they argued that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement. Political positions The John Birch Society from its start opposed collectivism as a "cancer" and by extension communism and big government. Allegations that so-called "Insiders" have conspired to control the United States through communism and world government are a recurring theme of JBS publications. The organization and its founder, Robert W. Welch Jr., promoted Americanism as "the philosophical antithesis of Communism." It contended that the United States is a republic, not a democracy, and argued that states' rights should supersede those of the federal government. Welch infused constitutionalist and classical liberal principles, in addition to his conspiracy theories, into the JBS's ideology and rhetoric. In 1983, Congressman Larry McDonald, then the society's newly appointed chairman, characterized the JBS as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right. The society opposes "one world government", the United Nations (UN), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements. It argues the U.S. Constitution has been devalued in favor of political and economic globalization. It has cited the existence of the former Security and Prosperity Partnership as evidence of a push towards a North American Union. The JBS has sought immigration reduction. The JBS opposed the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. It has campaigned for state nullification. It opposes efforts to call an Article V convention to amend the U.S. Constitution, and it has been influential at promoting opposition to it among Republican legislators. The JBS also supports auditing and eventually dismantling the Federal Reserve System. The JBS holds that the United States Constitution gives only Congress the ability to coin money, and does not permit it to delegate this power, or to transform the dollar into a fiat currency not backed by gold or silver. Its publication The New American has described what it sees as American moral decline and threats to the family, including abortion, birth control, divorce, drugs, homosexuality, crime, violence, secular humanism, teenage pregnancy, teen suicide, environmentalism, feminism and pornography. The JBS has alleged that moral degeneracy is perpetrated by a conspiracy to make the United States vulnerable to internationalism. A JBS pamphlet distributed in 2024 illustrating a school on fire urged parents to withdraw children from public education, saying, "Reforming the schools is no longer an option. We must get them out now!" The JBS has been described as ultraconservative, far-right, extremist, and fringe. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists the society as a "Patriot" group, a group that "advocate[s] or adhere[s] to extreme antigovernment doctrines". By the 1990s, the JBS was perceived as "more mainstream conservative" than in the 1960s. It has also been associated with the American libertarian movement, as well as business nationalism. The society's worldview was noted in the early 2000s for influencing the American militia movement, although the JBS had not publicly called for paramilitary training. Extremism expert George Michael wrote that "a virtual who's who of the American radical right had at one time or another sojourned" in the JBS. 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. 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. 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. 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".: 8–10  Miller also writes that JBS helped stop the Equal Rights Amendment and helped set the stage for the Reagan Era,: 330, 347–351  while Mulloy writes that the JBS "played an essential role in the revitalization of conservatism" and "trained a generation of conservative activists." According to Professor Matthew Dallek, modern American conservatism "bear[s] the imprint of the John Birch Society," : 2  and "the GOP has largely replaced the ideological tenets of Reaganism with a worldview inherited from the John Birch Society (JBS)." 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." JBS took an early stance in opposing abortion and social liberalism,: 347, 357–360  and its TRIM committees, which supported lower taxes, helped lead to the Reagan tax cuts.: 361–64  By the early 2020s, multiple commentators and academics argued that the John Birch .... Discover the Edward H Miller popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Edward H Miller books.