Edward H. Miller - A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism

Edward H. Miller

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2021 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-44886-2 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-44905-0 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226449050.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Miller, Edward H. (Edward Herbert), author.

Title: A conspiratorial life : Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the revolution of American conservatism / Edward H. Miller.

Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021017533 | ISBN 9780226448862 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226449050 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Welch, Robert, 18991985. | John Birch SocietyBiography. | Right-wing extremistsUnited StatesBiography. | Conspiracy theoriesUnited StatesHistory20th century. | ConservatismUnited StatesHistory20th century. | United StatesPolitics and government19451989.

Classification: LCC E748.W436 M56 2021 | DDC [Fic]dc26

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017533

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To Jack Miller

We live in the age of Robert Welchwhether or not we know who he is, what he did, or why he matters. So shouldnt we know something more about a man whose worldview is absolutely everywhere?

The day Joseph R. Biden took the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts and became the forty-sixth president of the United States, Donald J. Trump still had not conceded. Election fraud by the Democrats, Trump tweeted for two whole months, stole the election from him and the American people. But this claim was pure myth. Court after election commission after court found no evidence to support Trumps words. A full 75 percent of Republicans didnt believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, laying the groundwork for Donald Trump to incite an insurrection to steal it for real.

The QAnon conspiracy theorywhich holds that Democrats in the Deep State undermined Trumps presidency in order to cover up their child-sex racket, and claims Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene among its more prominent adherentsis favorably viewed by nearly one-third of Republicans, while polling shows that violent anti-democratic sentiment is rampant in the conservative movement.

And when Republican lawmakers had a chance to draw a bright line between their party and the conspiracy theorists and the insurrectionists during Trumps impeachment trial, the vast majority voted to acquit.

The QAnon conspiracy theory had no basis in reality. Trumps election fraud conspiracy theory had no basis in reality, but his supporters and some Republican leaders echoed the false charge. Trumps entire political careerand a great deal of his popular appeallay in conspiracism of a kind that owes something to Robert Welch.

Trumps entry into politics began with another conspiracy theory. In 1989, after a female jogger was raped and beaten nearly to death in New York Citys Central Park, Trump took out newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the five Black and Brown teens accused of committing the crime. Even after DNA evidence found they were not guilty, Trump still insisted they were. Similarly, Trump amplified early and often the completely baseless claim that Barack Obama was born in Africa and thus ineligible to serve as president. Yet Obama was born in Hawaii. Trumps lie stirred up long-standing racial hatreds, and his followers believed his false claim.

Trump put forward many other conspiracies and lies. He characterized all Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug runners, and told his supporters that he would build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. Trump dispensed with one of his rivals, Ted Cruz, by alleging that Cruzs father was somehow involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Trump based this claim on a National Enquirer photograph showing Cruzs father and Lee Harvey Oswald standing together several months before the assassination.

These lies led to others and to wild overstatements. Trump threatened to jail his Democratic challenger in the 2016 presidential election, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, for using a private email server while serving in her official capacity. Although illegal, her actions hardly were unprecedented or verifiably malicious. But this distinction did not deter Trumps supporters from cheering Lock Her Up at political rallies. Trump was swept into the White House in the November election by riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, assaulting traditional alliances, and appealing to nostalgia with promises to Make America Great Again, summoning a mythical past where American manufacturing was second to none and where Black, Brown, and female people knew their place.

Trump didnt necessarily know the historical background of his claims and rhetoric. One of his campaign slogans was America First, the name of an organization that Welch joined in the 1940s to keep America out of World War II. Trumps isolationism and Welchs isolationism werent exactly the same, but they rhymed.

Our politics today seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrications, George W. Bush observed in 2017. The forty-third president was right. But the onset of his presidency had contributed to their rise; in 2000, the Supreme Court, not the American people, ruled that he had won over Al Gore. Some people saw a conspiracy: elites had manipulated the vote. How did such a calamity come to pass? It was as if Welch had scripted it.

On election night, Fox News announced that Bush had won Florida and was thus president-elect. ABC, NBC, and CNN followed suit. Then Gore conceded. John Ellis, Bushs first cousin, who was appointed by Roger Ailes to run Fox Newss decision desk, yelled out, Jebbie says weve got it! Jebbie was Bushs brother, the governor of Florida. Gore then unconceded, telling George Bush over the telephone, Your little brother is not the ultimate authority on this.

But that wasnt all there was to fuel conspiracy theories. Confusion and irregularities at the polls were reported throughout that day. Gore had won the national popular vote by more than a half of a million votes, and relying on this, he contested Bushs win in Florida. Floridas Supreme Court then called for a manual recount. That count went on for thirty-six tension-filled days. Then, the US Supreme Court struck down the recount by a five-to-four vote. The five justices who gave the presidency to George Walker Bush based their decision on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendmentone of the strangest decisions in judicial history. The Fourteenth Amendment had been passed to provide rights to African Americans during Reconstruction, not to decide a presidential election. Those five justices had been appointed by Republicans: either Ronald Reagan or George Herbert Walker Bush, George Bushs father. Justice John Paul Stevenswho had also been appointed by a Republican, Gerald Forddissented, writing, although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this years presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nations confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.