John Birch Society

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, or libertarian ideas. 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 was controversial for its promotion of conspiracy theories. In the 1960s the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review pushed for the JBS to be exiled to the fringes of the American right. More recently, Jeet Heer has argued in The New Republic that while the organization's influence peaked in the 1970s, "Bircherism" and its legacy of conspiracy theories have become the dominant strain in the conservative movement. Politico has asserted that the JBS began making a resurgence in the mid-2010s, while observers have stated that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement. Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Reinbach called the JBS "the intellectual seed bank of the right." Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, the John Birch Society is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters throughout the United States. It owns American Opinion Publishing, which publishes the magazine The New American, and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy. The John Birch Society from its start opposed collectivism as a "cancer" and, by extension, Communism and big government. The organization and its founder, Robert Welch, 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.

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