at least for the john birch society largely did.en we're dealing with right now including last night, donald trump addressing a rally in waco, texas, with that language about being your retribution? >> i want to say, be clear, there are no perfect lessons. the birch society, of course, was constrained institutionally on a much more robust democratic system. the anti defamation league the, americans for democratic action. the naacp. the justice department. there are many government non governmental groups who believed in democracy, who defended it. i do think we saw some of that now. the justice department has jailed and convicted hundreds of people from rioters and insurrectionists from january 6th. the other point that i try to make in this piece in the atlantic is that as you said at the outset, these movements do tend to burn themselves out. the conspiracy theories draw more and more radical to the ranks including bigots and people prone to violence. you see that dynamic, you saw the dynamic of the john birch society in the late

mccarthy did this in the 50s but you had the john birch society and barry goldwater. who here knows barry goeldwater? all the hands go up. when he ran for president in 1964, i tell the story in the book, he plotted, that's the word for it, with william f. buckley on how not to disassociate the republican party and the right from the john birch society. buckley eventually did but for goldwater it was very important to keep them within the party because they were his foot soldiers. he won the decisive california primary in 1964 in part because he had this army of people, the john birch society, which was their day version of q anon. they didn't eat babies and traffic and talk about sex trafficking but they were paranoid to a tremendous extent. comies everywhere, eisenhower was a comy, every union, every university, every corporation was infiltrated with communists and they were controlling the u.s. government. so the republican party made its peace and spoke to them, encouraged that extremism, that paranoid view of the world as mccarthy did for many years in order to ke

joining us now, george washington university professor matthew dalek, author of "birchers: how the john birched the american right." >> there is an ebb is flow. when reagan campaigned in 1986, john birchers supported him. he was told to distance himself. i know matthew will know the statement better than me, but along the lines of, if they support me, they have to support my views, not vice versa. when i was running in 1994, there were still john birchers around. they were sort of kept at arm's length, the same way reagan kept them at arm's length. they were still in republican politics. the biggest difference now is the door has been opened unto them, and they're having a bigger impact than they have in quite some time. >> the thing i'm so struck by is the first 40, 50 minutes of your show, much of what we heard from ron desantis, donald trump, other leaders of the republican party strikes a birch key. the conspiracy, the idea of a george soros plot, right, a jewish international figure, the kind of nativism and isolationism we've seen come atop the gop. a lot of these ideas are the descende

going back to the john birch society. they ran a campaign against sex education in the 70s.bryant in florida had a whole furor about gay teachers that actually, ronald reagan smoke down because he thought it was wrong. so again, i think it really is important to understand that our discord gets convulsed by these issues at key moments when maybe we can't figure out issues of economic inequality. so we focus on these, sort of, paste board cultural animated's to hammer away at. so we can't sit down and say, well look, let's really build the full employment economy. less let's bring back american manufacturing. let's figure out a way to make globalization less grossly unequal. >> jim antle, your take? >> i think a couple things. number one, as much as there is disagreement on a variety of issues that animate the culture war. i think the number one disagreement people have is, who is the aggressor in the culture war? each side believes that the other side is in fact the aggressor. and that there is a defensive posture. secondly, i think a big distinction between the cancel cultu

. >> the anti-communist john birch society were engaged in spreading pretty virulent conspiracy theoriescused their political opponents of being communists, that the government was riddled with secret communists who were working to sort of undermine the workings of the government, and this was an existential threat. >> the civil rights movement, as we know it today, is simply part of a worldwide movement organized and directed by communists to enslave all mankind. >> it's something that we have seen subsequently that people who don't believe what you believe ideologically are actually a danger to the united states, and that idea has recurred quite a lot. >> these ideas can also take root when people have lost trust in their leaders. >> conspiracy theorists, they don't have to do very much work to make people believe that the government is capable of real atrocities, because they have perpetrated them in the past. >> whether we're old or young, we can probably remember a time in our lives when something we thought was true was exposed as a lie. >> peace will be necessary for final success

mccarthy did this in the 50s but you had the john birch society and barry goldwater. who here knows barry goeldwater? all the hands go up. when he ran for president in 1964, i tell the story in the book, he plotted, that's the word for it, with william f. buckley on how not to disassociate the republican party and the right from the john birch society. buckley eventually did but for goldwater it was very important to keep them within the party because they were his foot soldiers. he won the decisive california primary in 1964 in part because he had this army of people, the john birch society, which was their day version of q anon. they didn't eat babies and traffic and talk about sex trafficking but they were paranoid to a tremendous extent. comies everywhere, eisenhower was a comy, every union, every university, every corporation was infiltrated with communists and they were controlling the u.s. government. so the republican party made its peace and spoke to them, encouraged that extremism, that paranoid view of the world as mccarthy did for many years in order to ke

it is true of the school panics going back to the john birch society that ran a campaign against educationthe 1970's. in florida, they had a fear about teachers. ronald reagan mowed it down because he thought it was wrong. i think it is important to understand this course -- this course -- we focus on these pace toward cultural enemies to hammer away at so we cannot sit down and say let's rebuild a full employment economy, let's bring back american manufacturing. let's figure out a way to make globalization less grossly unequal. host: your take? guest: a couple of things. number one, as much as there is disagreement on a variety of issues that animate the culture war, i think the number one disagreement people have is, who is the aggressor in the culture war? each side believes the other side is the aggressor and theirs is a defensive posture. i think there's a big distinction between the cancel culture controversies of today and the political correctness discussions of the 1990's. in the 1990's, it was really an academic, college, phenomenon. while they are business majors, they can repea

it is true of the school panics going back to the john birch society that ran a campaign against educationthe 1970's. in florida, they had a fear about teachers. ronald reagan mowed it down because he thought it was wrong. i think it is important to understand this course -- this course -- we focus on these pace toward cultural enemies to hammer away at so we cannot sit down and say let's rebuild a full employment economy, let's bring back american manufacturing. let's figure out a way to make globalization less grossly unequal. host: your take? guest: a couple of things. number one, as much as there is disagreement on a variety of issues that animate the culture war, i think the number one disagreement people have is, who is the aggressor in the culture war? each side believes the other side is the aggressor and theirs is a defensive posture. i think there's a big distinction between the cancel culture controversies of today and the political correctness discussions of the 1990's. in the 1990's, it was really an academic, college, phenomenon. while they are business majors, they can repea

all right, john, thank you that well, traffic has been building, especially along 85, 80. >> see a few hazards and reports of issues here. university in birch looks like there's an accident. crockett out towards the maze. going to about 32 minutes. so again, san pablo avenue runs adjacent to that. but you have to deal with those lights, the stopping lights there. so factor that in and figure out which commute is best served for you. 31 minute ride into the city. we start with several accidents as the morning went on. and so that slows down residual delays. what we're looking at now, windy, gusty san mateo bridge. 15 minutes. slow it down. the air. well, that cameras feels like it's going to shake off of there in a moment make she put both hands on the steering wheels as you're driving about a 40 minute drive of 1, 0, one. 85 into park. while 2, 80 82 not see major issues traveling along those highways over the east bay. pretty busy 8, 80 still pete is 34 minutes 6.80, through signal that take a little time because you're slowing there. traffic is finally building traveling from 8.80, from hayward and oakland about 35 minutes. highway for 24