
Birchers
How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right
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Narrated by:
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Donald Corren
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By:
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Matthew Dallek
About this listen
How a notorious far right organization set the Republican Party on a long march toward extremism
At the height of the John Birch Society’s activity in the 1960s, critics dismissed its members as a paranoid fringe. After all, “Birchers” believed that a vast communist conspiracy existed in America and posed an existential threat to Christianity, capitalism, and freedom. But as historian Matthew Dallek reveals, the Birch Society’s extremism remade American conservatism. Most Birchers were white professionals who were radicalized as growing calls for racial and gender equality appeared to upend American life. Conservative leaders recognized that these affluent voters were needed to win elections, and for decades the GOP courted Birchers and their extremist successors. The far right steadily gained power, finally toppling the Republican establishment and electing Donald Trump.
Birchers is a deeply researched and indispensable new account of the rise of extremism in the United States.
©2023 Matthew Dallek (P)2023 Basic BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Network of Lies
- The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for America
- By: Brian Stelter
- Narrated by: Brian Stelter
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In Network of Lies, New York Times bestselling author Brian Stelter answers these questions by weaving together private texts, unpublished emails, depositions, and other primary sources to tell the chilling story of Trump’s alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election, and the right-wing media’s mission to put him back in office in 2024.
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Eye opener .
- By catherine weaver on 11-21-23
By: Brian Stelter
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The Power Worshippers
- Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Tosca Hopkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.
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The Audible editors were AWOL on this one
- By Frank Hightower on 05-24-20
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When the Clock Broke
- Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
- By: John Ganz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.
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Amazing history of the early 90s
- By Aaron R. Isaacson on 06-25-24
By: John Ganz
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The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
- American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
- By: Tim Alberta
- Narrated by: Tim Alberta
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement.
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Looked forward to this a long time and wasn’t disappointed!
- By Josh Hulbert on 12-08-23
By: Tim Alberta
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Democracy Awakening
- Notes on the State of America
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when the very foundations of American democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a road map for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy, tracing the roots of Donald Trump’s “authoritarian experiment” to the earliest days of the republic.
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We’d be in a much better position if everyone read this
- By Jeffrey Schwartz on 10-01-23
What listeners say about Birchers
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- quaere
- 03-28-23
Fascinating
Knowing this history informs on the political environment today. Everything old is new again. Highly recommend
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2 people found this helpful
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- Janie Burns
- 06-03-23
The Progenitor of the MAGA Movement
I was somewhat familiar with the John Birch Society from the 60s but never thought of it as a subversive organization infiltrating the GOP with a goal of undermining democracy. I thought it died out in the 70s. This book describes in detail how it metastasized and spread throughout the Republican Party and evolved into the current-day MAGA insurrectionist movement. Truly fascinating.
The delivery is like listening for hours to a lecturer discussing an important but dry episode of history which at times made me want to skip a few chapters or even put the book down, but I’m glad I didn’t. I just hope the arc of Bircherism ends in 2024.
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2 people found this helpful
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- "teebalicious"
- 10-07-23
Everything old is new again.
In this fairly exhaustive but accessible history, common themes that once coalesced around pro-slavery and anti-immigrant forces are shown as a through line leading to the founding of the JBS, and how that influence continues today.
Many recognizable ideas, even word for word arguments and slogans, that dot our current political media landscape are unpacked here from their genesis. Fascinating, if morbid.
Easy to understand, interesting in both tone and content, and well read, this book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject.
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- William Diggins
- 05-03-24
The Missing Link
I was in elementary school circa 1969, when a classmate, the son of a corporate CEO mocked me for not knowing about the John Birch Society. Obviously he learned about it at home, as we were merely 7 years old. That stuck in my mind, so I had to read this book. Well, it turns out there’s a big throughline from the JBS to all the other right wing extremists up to the Tea Party and Q-Anon. The parallels are too obvious to ignore. Toss in the rise of specialized right wing media and social media’s facilitation of connecting like-minded individuals and their obsession with conspiracies and rumors and you get our current political climate. And there’s no William F. Buckley to gatekeep or rein in or tamp it down. Read this book for a thorough history of how we got here. Oh my heavens. It is timely.
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- D. Littman
- 03-26-23
Excellent popular history
An excellent well-researched popular history of the John Birch Society & the far right "populism" of the 1950s and 1960s. Many resemblances between this stain on American history and earlier ones (e.g., the "No Nothing" Party of the 1850s, the KKK of the 1920s) and later/contemporary ones (QAnon). This strain of rightwing, paranoid has existed as an element of American politics throughout our history, usually repudiated by the mainstream parties (whether honestly or not). Today's paranoid/racist/anti-immigration & anti-semitic fringe has seemingly found a home in the contemporary Republican Party. An understanding of the boom & bust of the John Birch Society can help the reader understanding what is going on now.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Shirley
- 05-23-23
My father was a Bircher.
Well written and very well narrated, this history is poignant and extremely relevant to the challenges we currently face as a nation.
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- J. Harris
- 06-29-23
Good tie in to current politics
If you always wondered about what the John Birch Society was and who was John Birch this is the starting point. Prof Dallek demonstrates how it all ties into today..
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-15-23
Fallen connects the dots from the Birchers’ beginnings to the frightening radical right of today.
I liked the straightforward sequencing of changes in conservative Republican politics as it accommodated and absorbed JBS racism, nativism, and conspiracy theories.
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- Stefan Borst-Censullo
- 07-17-24
Well crafted but needed more research
Decent thesis but the author stretched the material to cover the modern era instead of focusing on the main era of the society’s influence
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- lani baker
- 03-17-24
Terrible
This book makes a terrible argument and is baseless, it’s prejudiced robs it of logic and it author is lazy and void of intelligence.
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1 person found this helpful