Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, December 9, 1958 in Indianapolis, Indiana during a two-day session, a group of 12 men founded the John Birch Society, named in honor of John Birch, considered by many to be the first American

casualty in the struggle against communism. He had been killed in China in the

40s while on a missionary slash US Army trip. We'll maybe get into that.

But the point is, the John Birch Society would quickly grow its membership to nearly 100,000

Americans by the early 60s, bringing in millions of dollars in contributions,

and more importantly probably

becoming deeply influential in conservative circles infusing a fierce

anti-communism social conservatism and a deep paranoia maybe even conspiracy thinking that would run

through conservatism through the 20th century and folks I'll tell you it hasn't

really gone anywhere we may still be living in John Birch's long shadow.

So here to discuss the founding of the John Birch Society,

the ways in which its views and members have been embraced, pushed to the fringes,

exiled, worms their way back in and just generally been around

over the decades are. As always, Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello there.

Hi Jody.

Hey there.

And our special guest for this episode is John S Huntington Professor of History at Houston Community College and author of the book,

Far Right Vanguard, the Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism.

John, thank you for doing this.

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