The John Birch Society Is Now the Republican Party

When Trump held the Republican Party Convention in August 2020, the media and political pundits said the convention did not produce a party platform. They were wrong.

The convention had an old, dusted off the political platform. It was the one the Republicans resurrected from the John Birch Society, the ultra-right-wing group that has morphed itself into the far-right Libertarian and Tea Parties. It is a transformation that never made it into the mainstream media.

This is why venerated Republicans–Dwight Eisenhower, George Bush I, Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase Smith, Clifford Case, Mark Hatfield, Lowell Weicker, Richard Schweiker, Kenneth Keating, and John Chafee–would all be unwelcome as Republicans today.

This right-wing coup was accomplished over decades by significant donations from right-wing think tanks and wealthy white men who worked to old democratic beliefs.

 

Then, they replaced them with subverted philosophies that vilified bi-partisan political co-operation and even patriotism and exchanged those beliefs for blatant, cold corporatism and selling the government to the highest bidder.

The John Birch Society has taken over the U.S., and no one noticed.

Even worse, this was all done in the open and was spelled out by a chief coup leader, David Koch, who ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

• “We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
• “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
• “We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
• “We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
• “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
• “We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
• “We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.

Sound familiar?

It should. It is the exact path Trump and his right-wing supporters have implemented over the past four years, even down to trying to abolish the US Postal Service. That should sound familiar.

Historians will look upon the Trump presidency as a nadir in American life.

But it has been developing for a few generations, starting with Ronald Reagan.

Trump is just a product of a corrupt political, social, and financial system that lets a known sociopath run through the system.

• He got away with it because he was a rich, white guy.
• He took advantage of banks that failed to do their due diligence.
• He found banks that were greedy and corrupt.
• He worked with unscrupulous lawyers, accountants, and corrupt elected officials.
• He thrived in a friendly, male, white Manhattan society where gangsters and business people mingled.

Trump is the perverted product of American society. How he got away with groping women, giving the finger to global banks on hundreds of millions in loans, and evading taxes and paying ills to blue-collar contractors is something no one can explain.

And worse, that should worry millions of people who work under the false assumption that America is an equal opportunity nation.