Radical Right
Encyclopedia
Radical Right is a generally pejorative term used to describe various political movements on the right
that are conspiracist, attuned to anti-American
or anti-Christian agents of foreign powers, and "politically radical
." The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society
in the United States, and since has been used for similar groups worldwide.
The term "radical" was applied to the American groups because they sought to make fundamental (hence "radical") changes in American institutions and remove from political life persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests. They were called "right-wing
" primarily because of their opposition to both socialism
and communism
and their ultraconservative or reactionary
tendencies which limited new access to power and status.
in his article included in The new American Right, published in 1955. The contributors to that book identified a conservative "responsible Right" as represented by the Republican administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower
and a radical Right that wished to change political and social life. Further to the right of the Radical Right, they identified an ultraright. Most ultraright groups operate outside political life, call for drastic change and in extreme cases use violence against the state. These groups were seen as having developed from the Radical Right, both by adopting ideology and containing members drawn from them. In The Radical Right a contrast is made between the main section of the Radical Right that developed in the 1950s and was able to obtain influence during the Reagan administration, and the related ultraright that had turned to violent acts including the Oklahoma bombing.
Ultraright groups, as defined in The Radical Right, are normally called "far-right", although they may be called "radical right" as well.
According to Clive Webb, "Radical right is commonly, but not completely, used to describe anticommunist organizations such as the Christian Crusade and John Birch Society.... [T]he term far right...is the label most broadly used by scholars...to describe militant white supremacists."
, which was seen as a lapse from the American political tradition. A framework for description was developed primarily in Richard Hofstadter
's "The pseudo-conservative revolt" and Seymour Martin Lipset
's "The sources of the radical right". These essays, along with others by Daniel Bell
, Talcott Parsons
, Peter Viereck
and Herbert Hyman were included in The new American Right (1955). In 1963, following the rise of the John Birch Society
, the authors were asked to re-examine their earlier essays and the revised essays were published in the book The Radical Right. Lipset, along with Earl Raab, traced the history of the radical right in The politics of unreason (1970).
The central arguments of The Radical Right provoked criticism. Some on the Right thought that McCarthyism could be explained as a rational reaction to Communism. Others thought McCarthyism should be explained as part of the Republican Party's political strategy. Critics on the Left denied that McCarthyism could be intrepeted as a mass movement, and rejected the comparison with 19th century populism. Others saw status politics, dispossession and other explanations as too vague.
wrote an analysis in his influential 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics
". Hofstader sought to identify the characteristics of the groups. Hofstadter defined politically paranoid individuals as feeling persecuted, fearing conspiracy, and acting over-aggressive yet socialized. Hofstadter and other scholars in the 1950s argued that the major left-wing movement of the 1890s, the Populists, showed what Hofstadter said was "paranoid delusions of conspiracy by the Money Power." Historians have also applied the paranoid category to other political movements, such as the conservative Constitutional Union Party
of 1860. Hofstadter's approach was later applied to the rise of new right-wing groups, including the Christian Right and the Patriot Movement.
However, some scholars reject Lipset and Raab's analysis. James Aho for example says that the way individuals join right-wing groups is no different from how they join other types of groups. They are influenced by recruiters and join because they believe the goals promoted by the group are of value to them and find personal value in belonging to the group. Several scholars, including Sara Diamond
and Chip Berlet
reject the theory that membership in the radical right is driven by emotionality and irrationality and see them as similar to other political movements. John George and Laird Wilcox
see the psychological claims in Lipset and Raab's approach as "dehumanizing" of members of the radical right. They claim that the same description of members of the radical right is also true of many people within the political mainstream.
Hofstader found a common thread in the radical right, from fear of the Illuminati in the late 18th century, to anti-Catholic and anti-Masonic movements in the 19th to McCarthyism and the John Birch Society in the 20th. They were conspiracist
, Manichean, absolutist and paranoid. They saw history as a conspiracy by a demonic force that was on the verge of total control, requiring their urgent efforts to stop it. Therefore they rejected pluralistic politics, with its compromise and consensus-building. Hofstadter thought that these characteristics were always present in a large minority of the population. Frequent waves of status displacement would continually bring it to the surface.
D. J. Mulloy however noted that the term "extremist" is often applied to groups outside the political mainstream and the term is dropped once these groups obtain respectability, using the Palestinian Liberation Organization as an example. The mainstream frequently ignores the commonality between itself and so-called extremist organizations. Also, the radical right appeals to views that are held by the mainstream: antielitism, individualism, and egalitarianism. Their views on religion, race, Americanism and guns are held by a significant proportion of other white Americans.
's 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics
. Imaginary threats have variously been identified as originating from Catholics, Mormons, Jews, American Communists, Freemasons, bankers, and the U.S. government. Alexander Zaitchik
, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC), credited cable news hosts, including Glenn Beck
and Lou Dobbs
, the John Birch Society
and WorldNetDaily
with popularizing conspiracy theories. In the Fall issue of the SPLC's Intelligence Report, he identified the following as the top 10 conspiracy theories of the Radical Right:
, formed as the Italian Social Movement
in 1946, the French National Front, founded in 1972, and the Freedom Party of Austria
, an existing party that moved sharply right after 1986. Typically new right-wing parties, such as the French Poujadists, the U. S. Reform Party
and the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List enjoyed short-lived prominence. The main support for these parties comes from both the self-employed and skilled and unskilled labor, with support coming predominantly from males.
However, scholars are divided on whether these parties are radical right, since they differ from the groups described in earlier studies of the radical right. They are more often described as populist
.
Studies of the radical right in the United States and right-wing populism
in Europe have tended to be conducted independently, with very few comparisons made. European analyses have tended to use comparisons with fascism, while studies of the American radical right have stressed American exceptionalism. The U. S. studies have paid attention to the consequences of slavery, the profusion of religious denominations and a history of immigration, and saw fascism as uniquely European.
Although the term "radical right" was American in origin, the term has been consciously adopted by some European social scientists. Conversely the term "right-wing extremism", which is European in origin, has been adopted by some American social scientists. Since the European right-wing groups in existence immediately following the war had roots in fascism they were normally called "neo-fascist". But as new right-wing groups emerged with no connection to historical fascism, the use of the term "right-wing extremism" came to be more widely used.
Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg argued that the radical right in the U. S. and right-wing populism in Europe were the same phenomenon that existed throughout the Western world. They identified the core attributes as contained in extremism, behaviour and beliefs. As extremists, they see no moral ambiguity and demonize the enemy, sometimes connecting them to conspiracy theories such as the New World Order
. Most politicians are seen as traitors or cowards. Given this worldview, there is a tendency to use methods outside democratic norms, although this is not always the case. The main core belief is inequality, which often takes the form of opposition to immigration or racism. They do not see this new Right as having any connection with the historic Right, which had been concerned with protecting the status quo. They also see the cooperation of the American and European forms, and their mutual influence on each other, as evidence of their existence as a single phenomenon.
David Bell
argues that the ideology of the radical right is "...its readiness to jettison constitutional processes and to suspend liberties, to condone Communist methods in the fighting of Communism." Historian Richard Hofstader agrees that Communist-style methods are often emulated: "The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through 'front' groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy." He also quotes Barry Goldwater
: "I would suggest that we analyze and copy the strategy of the enemy; theirs has worked and ours has not."
. It stressed the dangers of aristocracy, as represented by the British government, corruption, and the need for every citizen to display civic virtue. When public affairs took a bad turn, Republicans were inclined to identify a conspiracy of evil forces as the cause.
Against this background of fear of conspiracies against American liberties the first Radical Right-style responses came in the 1790s. Some Federalists warned of an organized conspiracy involving Thomas Jefferson
and his followers, and recent arrivals from Europe, alleging they were agents of the French revolutionary agenda of violent radicalism, social equalitarianism and anti-Christian infidelity. The Federalists in 1798 acted by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts
, designed to protect the country against both foreign and domestic radicals. Fear of immigration led to a riot in New York City in 1806 between nativists and Irishmen, which led to increased calls by Federalists to nativism.
comprised powerful evil secret elites who rejected republican values and were blocking the movement toward egalitarianism and reform. The anti-Masons, with a strong evangelical base, organized into a political party, the Anti-Masonic Party
that pledged to rid Masons from public office. It was most active in 1828-1836. The Freemason movement was badly damaged and never fully recovered; the Anti-Mason movement merged into the coalition that became the new Whig Party
. The anti-Masonry movement was not "radical"; it fully participated in democracy, and was animated by the belief that the Masons were the ones subverting democracy in America. While earlier accounts of the antimasons portrayed their supporters as mainly poor people, more recent scholarship has shown that they were largely middle-class.
. It merged into the Know Nothings in the 1850s. The main support for the Know Nothings was urban and working class. The party split over slavery and the northern wing merged into the Republican Party in the late 1850s.
(APA) formed in the Middle West in 1887 by Irish Protestants to fight the power of the Catholic Church in politics. It was a secret organization whose members campaigned for Protestant candidates in local elections and opposed hiring Catholics for government jobs. Claiming to have secret documents obtained from nuns and priests who had escaped from the Catholic Church, it claimed that the Pope had absolved Catholics from loyalty to the United States and asked them to kill heretics. It claimed that the Catholic Church ordered Catholics to emigrate to major U. S. cities where they could assume control and claimed that the civil service was dominated by Catholics who remitted part of their pay to Rome. The movement was rejected by mainstream Republicans and faded away in the mid-1890s.
An offshoot of the APA, the Protestant Protective Association
(PPA) was set up in the Canadian province of Ontario in 1891. It drew support from Orangemen
in the 1890s, before going into decline. Its leaders opposed Catholic influence and supported the Imperial Federation
. A PPA was also set up in Australia.
were arming themselves, and Irish policemen would shoot Protestants as heretics. They claimed the Catholics were planning to take Washington and put the Pope in power, and that all presidential assassinations had been carried out by Catholics. The prominent Klan leader, D. C. Stephenson
claimed that international Jewish bankers were behind the First World War and planned to destroy economic opportunities for Christians. Other Klansmen claimed that the Russian Revolution and Communism were controlled by Jews. The Klan frequently reprinted parts of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and New York was condemned as an evil city controlled by Jews and Catholics. The objects of Klan fear however tended to vary by locale and included Catholics, Jews, African Americans, Wobblies, Orientals, unions and liquor. The Klan were also anti-elitist and attacked "the intellectuals", seeing themselves as egalitarian defenders of the common man.
British subjects who became naturalized Americans were encouraged to join the "Riders of the Red Robe", and the Klan was successful in establishing branches in several Canadian provinces, although they disappeared after 1930.
there were a large number of small nativist groups, whose ideology and support were similar to those of earlier nativist groups. However protofascist movements, such as Huey Long
's Share Our Wealth
and Father Coughlin's National Union for Social Justice emerged, which differed from other right-wing groups by attacking big business, calling for economic reform and rejecting nativism. However, Coughlin's group later developed a racist ideology.
The Black Legion
, which had a peak membership of 40,000 was formed by former Klansmen and operated in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Unlike the Klan, its members dressed in black and its organizational hierarchy was based on the military, not fraternal organizations. Its members swore an oath to keep "the secrets of the order to support God, the United States Constitution, and the Black Legion in its holy war against Catholics, Jews, Communists, Negroes, and aliens". The organization went into decline after more than fifty members were convicted of various crimes in support of the organization. The typical member was from a small farm in the South, lacked a high school graduation diploma, was married with children and worked in unskilled labor.
Gerald B. Winrod
, a fundamentalist Christian minister who founded the Defenders of the Christian Faith revived the Illuminati conspiracy theory that have originally been introduced into the United States in 1798. He claimed that both the French and Russian Revolutions were directed by a them and saw the Protocols of the elders of Zion as an accurate expose of a Jewish conspiracy. He saw the Jews, the Catholics, the Communists and the bankers as working together to destroy American Protestantism. Although Winrod's appeal was mainly limited to rural, poor, uneducated fundamentalist Christians, his magazine The Defender reached a peak circulation of 100,000 in the late 1930s.
William Dudley Pelley
's Silver Shirts movement was overtly modelled on European fascism and introduced a populist statist plan for economic organization. The United States would be reorganized as a corporation, with individuals paid according to their contributions, although African Americans, aboriginals and aliens would be treated as wards of the states and therefore hold a lower status. The organization blamed the Jews for the depression, Communism, and the spread of immorality, but openly welcomed Catholic membership. Its membership was largely uneducated, poor and elderly, with a high proportion of neurotics, and it had a large female membership. Its main base of support was in small communities in the Midwest and West Coast, and it had almost no presence in the Southern States.
Father Coughlin was a Catholic priest who had begun broadcasting on religious matters in 1926. However when his program went national in 1930, he began to comment on political issues, promoting a strongly ant-Communist stance, while being highly critical of American capitalists. He urged government to protect workers, denounced prohibition and held the "international bankers" responsible for the depression. By 1932 he had millions of regular viewers. The following year he set up the "National Union for Social Justice". Although an early supporter of the U. S. president, Franklin Roosevelt, he broke with him in 1935 when Roosevelt proposed that the United States join the World Court
. Coughlin then denounced the New Deal
, which he claimed had accomplished little but had strengthened the position of the bankers. His organization became increasingly supportive of European fascism.
In 1936 Coughlin began to endorse candidates for political office and supported the presidential campaign of William Lemke
, who campaigned on the Union Party
ticket. Lemke was also supported by Gerald L. K. Smith
, head of the Share Our Wealth
movement and Dr. Francis Townsend
, head of the Townsend Old Age movement. At the time Couglin claimed 5 million supporters of his organization, while Smith claimed his organization had 3 million members. In the election however Lemke received fewer than 900,000 votes.
Following this setback, Coughlin became more overtly fascist, attacking trade unionists and politicians for being pro-Communist, calling for a corporate state and setting up the "Social Justice Councils", which excluded non-Christians from membership. His magazine, Social Justice
, named Benito Mussolini
as man of the year in 1938 and defended Hitler's persecution of Jews, whom he linked with Communism. Major radio stations then refused to air his broadcasts and the Post Office banned Social Justice from the mails in 1942. Threatened by a sedition trial against Father Coughlin, the Catholic Church told him to cease his political activities and Couglin retired from political life.
Huey Long
who had been elected governor of Louisiana in 1928 and was a U. S. senator from 1932 until his death in 1935, built a national organization, Share Our Wealth
, which made a populist appeal. As governor, Long removed the poll tax
and directed state spending to the improvement of schools and rural roads. He attacked "the corporations and urbanites, the 'better elements' and the professional politicians." At the time of his death, his organization had, according to its files, over 27,000 clubs with a total membership of almost 8 million. Long was considered to be right-wing because of his authoritarian style, building a large National Guard and police force, intimidating opponents and the press, and bringing the electoral process and prosecution service under his direct control. Long never introduced minimum wage or child labor laws, unemployment insurance or old age pensions, although other states did so at the time. He actively courted support from big business, and reduced taxes on corporations. He differed from other right-wingers by making no appeal to conspiracy theories, nativism, or morality. He worked closely with Catholics and Jews and never appealed to race issues. However he chose Gerald L. K. Smith
, who was associated with the fascist Silver Shirts to organize his Share the Wealth movement. But the movement died out following Long's death.
and although no Communists were found, 30 employees were fired as a result. The strongest support for McCarthyism came from German and Irish Catholics who had been isolationist in both world wars and had an anti-British bias and opposed socialism on religious grounds. Much of the hostility was directed against the Eastern elites. Following the 1952 election in which the Republicans were successful, McCarthy continued his investigations into the new Republican administration until the Republican party turned against him.
with anti-Communism
. The founder, Robert Welch, Jr., believed that the greatest enemy of man was government, and the more extensive the government, the greater the enemy. To him, government was inherently corrupt and a threat to peace. He advocated private institutions, local government and rigid individuality.
Welch wondered why the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower
, had helped destroy Joe McCarthy, made peace with the Communists in Korea, refused to support anti-Communist movements abroad, and had extended the welfare state. His conclusion was that Eisenhower was either a Communist or a dupe of the Communists. Already, the U. S. A. government was 60% to 80% under Communist control. Welch saw the Communist conspiracy as controlled by the Illuminati, which he thought had directed the French and Russian Revolutions, and was behind the current civil rights movement. They were also responsible for welfare programs, central banking, progressive income taxation and the direct election of U. S. senators. Welch identified William Morgan
, William Wirt
and Joe McCarthy as people who been killed for their attempts to expose the Illuminati
. Morgan's murder presumably by Masons had led to the earlier Anti-Masonic movement, Wirt had denounced the New Deal
and McCarthy had claimed to have discovered a Communist conspiracy.
created a new party, which in later years came under the control of Radical Right elements. In 1969, the party had split into two groups, the anti-Communist American Party (AIP) under the leadership of T. Coleman Andrews
and another group under the AIP founder Bill Shearer
. Both groups opposed federal intervention into schools, favored police suppression of domestic disorder and victory in the Vietnam War. The two groups united under the American Party banner in order to support the 1972 presidential campaign of George Wallace, but after he withdrew they nominated U. S. Representative John Schmitz.
In Louisiana
, Ned Touchstone
, a Wallace supporter, edited a conservative newsletter, The Councilor, through which means he attacked liberals in both major parties. The Councilor was the publication of the White Citizens' Council. In 1967, Touchstone ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat against Louisiana Education Superintendent Bill Dodd, who carried the support of party moderates, liberals, and African Americans.
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
that are conspiracist, attuned to anti-American
Anti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
or anti-Christian agents of foreign powers, and "politically radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...
." The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
in the United States, and since has been used for similar groups worldwide.
The term "radical" was applied to the American groups because they sought to make fundamental (hence "radical") changes in American institutions and remove from political life persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests. They were called "right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
" primarily because of their opposition to both socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and their ultraconservative or reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
tendencies which limited new access to power and status.
Terminology
There is disagreement over how right-wing movements should be described, and no consensus in terminology, although the terminology developed in the 1950s, using the words "radical" or "extremist" is the most commonly used. Other scholars prefer calling them simply "The Right" or "conservatives", which is what they call themselves. The terminology is used to describe a broad range of movements. The term "radical right" was coined by Seymour Martin LipsetSeymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset was an American political sociologist, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and...
in his article included in The new American Right, published in 1955. The contributors to that book identified a conservative "responsible Right" as represented by the Republican administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
and a radical Right that wished to change political and social life. Further to the right of the Radical Right, they identified an ultraright. Most ultraright groups operate outside political life, call for drastic change and in extreme cases use violence against the state. These groups were seen as having developed from the Radical Right, both by adopting ideology and containing members drawn from them. In The Radical Right a contrast is made between the main section of the Radical Right that developed in the 1950s and was able to obtain influence during the Reagan administration, and the related ultraright that had turned to violent acts including the Oklahoma bombing.
Ultraright groups, as defined in The Radical Right, are normally called "far-right", although they may be called "radical right" as well.
According to Clive Webb, "Radical right is commonly, but not completely, used to describe anticommunist organizations such as the Christian Crusade and John Birch Society.... [T]he term far right...is the label most broadly used by scholars...to describe militant white supremacists."
Theoretical perspectives
The study of the radical right began in the 1950s as social scientists attempted to explain McCarthyismMcCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, which was seen as a lapse from the American political tradition. A framework for description was developed primarily in Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...
's "The pseudo-conservative revolt" and Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset was an American political sociologist, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and...
's "The sources of the radical right". These essays, along with others by Daniel Bell
Daniel Bell
Daniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor emeritus at Harvard University, best known for his seminal contributions to the study of post-industrialism...
, Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927 to 1973....
, Peter Viereck
Peter Viereck
Peter Robert Edwin Viereck , was an American poet and political thinker, as well as a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College for five decades.-Background:...
and Herbert Hyman were included in The new American Right (1955). In 1963, following the rise of the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
, the authors were asked to re-examine their earlier essays and the revised essays were published in the book The Radical Right. Lipset, along with Earl Raab, traced the history of the radical right in The politics of unreason (1970).
The central arguments of The Radical Right provoked criticism. Some on the Right thought that McCarthyism could be explained as a rational reaction to Communism. Others thought McCarthyism should be explained as part of the Republican Party's political strategy. Critics on the Left denied that McCarthyism could be intrepeted as a mass movement, and rejected the comparison with 19th century populism. Others saw status politics, dispossession and other explanations as too vague.
Paranoid style politics
Two different approaches were taken by these social scientists. Historian Richard HofstadterRichard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...
wrote an analysis in his influential 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard J. Hofstadter, is an historical essay tracing the influence of conspiracy theory and “movements of suspicious discontent” through the course of American history...
". Hofstader sought to identify the characteristics of the groups. Hofstadter defined politically paranoid individuals as feeling persecuted, fearing conspiracy, and acting over-aggressive yet socialized. Hofstadter and other scholars in the 1950s argued that the major left-wing movement of the 1890s, the Populists, showed what Hofstadter said was "paranoid delusions of conspiracy by the Money Power." Historians have also applied the paranoid category to other political movements, such as the conservative Constitutional Union Party
Constitutional Union Party
There have been at least three political parties named the Constitutional Union Party.* The Constitutional Union Party was a party that was active in the United States on a national level in 1860...
of 1860. Hofstadter's approach was later applied to the rise of new right-wing groups, including the Christian Right and the Patriot Movement.
Social structure
Sociologists Lipset and Raab were focused on who joined these movements and how they evolved. They saw the development of radical right-wing groups as occurring in three stages. In the first stage, certain groups came under strain because of a loss or threatened loss of power and/or status. In the second stage they theorize about what has led to this threat. In the third stage they identify people and groups whom they consider to be responsible. A successful radical right-wing group would be able to combine the anxieties of both elites and masses. European immigration for example threatened the elites because immigrants brought socialism and radicalism, while for the masses the threat came from their Catholicism. The main elements are low democratic restraint, having more of a stake in the past then the present and laissez-faire economics. The emphasis is on preserving social rather than economic status. The main population attracted are lower-educated, lower-income and lower-occupational strata. They were seen as having a lower commitment to democracy, instead having loyalty to groups, institutions and systems.However, some scholars reject Lipset and Raab's analysis. James Aho for example says that the way individuals join right-wing groups is no different from how they join other types of groups. They are influenced by recruiters and join because they believe the goals promoted by the group are of value to them and find personal value in belonging to the group. Several scholars, including Sara Diamond
Sara Diamond
Sara Rose Diamond is an American sociologist and attorney, and the author of four books that "study and expose the agenda and tactics of the American political right wing." .-Biography:...
and Chip Berlet
Chip Berlet
John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, and photojournalist activist specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations...
reject the theory that membership in the radical right is driven by emotionality and irrationality and see them as similar to other political movements. John George and Laird Wilcox
Laird Wilcox
Laird M. Wilcox is an American researcher specializing in the study of political fringe movements. He is the founder of the "Wilcox Collection on Contemporary Political Movements," said to be one of the largest collections of American political material in the United States. It is housed in the...
see the psychological claims in Lipset and Raab's approach as "dehumanizing" of members of the radical right. They claim that the same description of members of the radical right is also true of many people within the political mainstream.
Hofstader found a common thread in the radical right, from fear of the Illuminati in the late 18th century, to anti-Catholic and anti-Masonic movements in the 19th to McCarthyism and the John Birch Society in the 20th. They were conspiracist
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
, Manichean, absolutist and paranoid. They saw history as a conspiracy by a demonic force that was on the verge of total control, requiring their urgent efforts to stop it. Therefore they rejected pluralistic politics, with its compromise and consensus-building. Hofstadter thought that these characteristics were always present in a large minority of the population. Frequent waves of status displacement would continually bring it to the surface.
D. J. Mulloy however noted that the term "extremist" is often applied to groups outside the political mainstream and the term is dropped once these groups obtain respectability, using the Palestinian Liberation Organization as an example. The mainstream frequently ignores the commonality between itself and so-called extremist organizations. Also, the radical right appeals to views that are held by the mainstream: antielitism, individualism, and egalitarianism. Their views on religion, race, Americanism and guns are held by a significant proportion of other white Americans.
Conspiracism
Throughout history, conspiracism has been a major feature of the Radical Right, and subject to numerous books and articles, the most famous of which is Richard HofstadterRichard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...
's 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard J. Hofstadter, is an historical essay tracing the influence of conspiracy theory and “movements of suspicious discontent” through the course of American history...
. Imaginary threats have variously been identified as originating from Catholics, Mormons, Jews, American Communists, Freemasons, bankers, and the U.S. government. Alexander Zaitchik
Alexander Zaitchik
Alexander Zaitchik is an American freelance journalist who has written for: The Nation, Salon, The New Republic, The New York Observer, AlterNet, Mother Jones, Reason, The International Herald Tribune, Wired, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and Rolling Stone...
, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
(SPLC), credited cable news hosts, including Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
and Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs
Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...
, the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
and WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is an American web site that publishes news and associated content from a U.S. conservative perspective. It was founded in May 1997 by Joseph Farah with the stated intent of "exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power" and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.-History:In...
with popularizing conspiracy theories. In the Fall issue of the SPLC's Intelligence Report, he identified the following as the top 10 conspiracy theories of the Radical Right:
- Chemtrails
- Martial Law
- FEMA Concentration Camps
- Foreign troops on US soil
- Door-to-door gun confiscations
- 9/11 as government plan9/11 conspiracy theories9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...
- Population control
- HAARP
- Federal Reserve
- North American UnionNorth American UnionThe North American Union is a theoretical economic union, in some instances also a political union, of Canada, Mexico, and the United States...
Right-wing populism
From the 1990s parties that have been described as radical right became established in the legislatures of various democracies including Canada, Norway, France, Israel, Russia, Romania and Chile, and had entered coalition governments in Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Italy. However there is little consensus about the reasons for this. Some of these parties had historic roots, such as the National AllianceNational Alliance (Italy)
National Alliance was a conservative political party in Italy.Gianfranco Fini was the leader of the party since its foundation in 1995, however he stepped down in 2008 after being elected to the nominally non-partisan post of President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and was succeeded by...
, formed as the Italian Social Movement
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
in 1946, the French National Front, founded in 1972, and the Freedom Party of Austria
Freedom Party of Austria
The Freedom Party of Austria is a political party in Austria. Ideologically, the party is a direct descendant of the German national liberal camp, which dates back to the 1848 revolutions. The FPÖ itself was founded in 1956 as the successor to the short-lived Federation of Independents , which had...
, an existing party that moved sharply right after 1986. Typically new right-wing parties, such as the French Poujadists, the U. S. Reform Party
Reform Party of the United States of America
The Reform Party of the United States of America is a political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot...
and the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List enjoyed short-lived prominence. The main support for these parties comes from both the self-employed and skilled and unskilled labor, with support coming predominantly from males.
However, scholars are divided on whether these parties are radical right, since they differ from the groups described in earlier studies of the radical right. They are more often described as populist
Right-wing populism
Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered "right-wing" because of its rejection of social equality and government programs to achieve it, its opposition to social integration, and...
.
Studies of the radical right in the United States and right-wing populism
Right-wing populism
Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered "right-wing" because of its rejection of social equality and government programs to achieve it, its opposition to social integration, and...
in Europe have tended to be conducted independently, with very few comparisons made. European analyses have tended to use comparisons with fascism, while studies of the American radical right have stressed American exceptionalism. The U. S. studies have paid attention to the consequences of slavery, the profusion of religious denominations and a history of immigration, and saw fascism as uniquely European.
Although the term "radical right" was American in origin, the term has been consciously adopted by some European social scientists. Conversely the term "right-wing extremism", which is European in origin, has been adopted by some American social scientists. Since the European right-wing groups in existence immediately following the war had roots in fascism they were normally called "neo-fascist". But as new right-wing groups emerged with no connection to historical fascism, the use of the term "right-wing extremism" came to be more widely used.
Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg argued that the radical right in the U. S. and right-wing populism in Europe were the same phenomenon that existed throughout the Western world. They identified the core attributes as contained in extremism, behaviour and beliefs. As extremists, they see no moral ambiguity and demonize the enemy, sometimes connecting them to conspiracy theories such as the New World Order
New World Order
New World Order, New world order or The New World Order may refer to:*New world order , any period of history evidencing a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power...
. Most politicians are seen as traitors or cowards. Given this worldview, there is a tendency to use methods outside democratic norms, although this is not always the case. The main core belief is inequality, which often takes the form of opposition to immigration or racism. They do not see this new Right as having any connection with the historic Right, which had been concerned with protecting the status quo. They also see the cooperation of the American and European forms, and their mutual influence on each other, as evidence of their existence as a single phenomenon.
David Bell
David Bell
David Bell may refer to:* David Bell , Scottish television producer and director* David Bell , Irish soldier* David E...
argues that the ideology of the radical right is "...its readiness to jettison constitutional processes and to suspend liberties, to condone Communist methods in the fighting of Communism." Historian Richard Hofstader agrees that Communist-style methods are often emulated: "The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through 'front' groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy." He also quotes Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
: "I would suggest that we analyze and copy the strategy of the enemy; theirs has worked and ours has not."
Conspiracy fears
The American patriots who spearheaded the American Revolution in the 1770s were motivated primarily by an ideology that historians call RepublicanismRepublicanism in the United States
Republicanism is the political value system that has been a major part of American civic thought since the American Revolution. It stresses liberty and inalienable rights as central values, makes the people as a whole sovereign, supports activist government to promote the common good, rejects...
. It stressed the dangers of aristocracy, as represented by the British government, corruption, and the need for every citizen to display civic virtue. When public affairs took a bad turn, Republicans were inclined to identify a conspiracy of evil forces as the cause.
Against this background of fear of conspiracies against American liberties the first Radical Right-style responses came in the 1790s. Some Federalists warned of an organized conspiracy involving Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and his followers, and recent arrivals from Europe, alleging they were agents of the French revolutionary agenda of violent radicalism, social equalitarianism and anti-Christian infidelity. The Federalists in 1798 acted by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
, designed to protect the country against both foreign and domestic radicals. Fear of immigration led to a riot in New York City in 1806 between nativists and Irishmen, which led to increased calls by Federalists to nativism.
The Anti-Masonic Party
In America, public outrage against privilege and aristocracy in the United States was expressed in the Northeast by anti-Masonry, a belief that FreemasonryFreemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
comprised powerful evil secret elites who rejected republican values and were blocking the movement toward egalitarianism and reform. The anti-Masons, with a strong evangelical base, organized into a political party, the Anti-Masonic Party
Anti-Masonic Party
The Anti-Masonic Party was the first "third party" in the United States. It strongly opposed Freemasonry and was founded as a single-issue party aspiring to become a major party....
that pledged to rid Masons from public office. It was most active in 1828-1836. The Freemason movement was badly damaged and never fully recovered; the Anti-Mason movement merged into the coalition that became the new Whig Party
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
. The anti-Masonry movement was not "radical"; it fully participated in democracy, and was animated by the belief that the Masons were the ones subverting democracy in America. While earlier accounts of the antimasons portrayed their supporters as mainly poor people, more recent scholarship has shown that they were largely middle-class.
Nativism
The arrival of large numbers of Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1830s and 1840s led to a reaction among native Americans, who were alarmed by the levels of crime and welfare dependency among the new arrivals, and the use of violence to control the polls on election day. Nativists began to revere symbols of Americanism: the Puritans, Minute Men, Founding Fathers and true Christians. The immigrants were seen as part of a conspiracy to undermine America. Nativists in New York formed the American Republican PartyAmerican Republican Party
The American Republican Party was a minor nativist political organization that was launched in New York in June 1843, largely as a protest against immigrant voters and officeholders. In 1844, it carried municipal elections in New York City and Philadelphia and expanded so rapidly that by July,...
. It merged into the Know Nothings in the 1850s. The main support for the Know Nothings was urban and working class. The party split over slavery and the northern wing merged into the Republican Party in the late 1850s.
American Protective Association
The American Protective AssociationAmerican Protective Association
The American Protective Association, or APA was an American anti-Catholic society similar to the Know Nothings.-History:The APA was founded 13 March 1887 by Attorney Henry F. Bowers in Clinton, Iowa...
(APA) formed in the Middle West in 1887 by Irish Protestants to fight the power of the Catholic Church in politics. It was a secret organization whose members campaigned for Protestant candidates in local elections and opposed hiring Catholics for government jobs. Claiming to have secret documents obtained from nuns and priests who had escaped from the Catholic Church, it claimed that the Pope had absolved Catholics from loyalty to the United States and asked them to kill heretics. It claimed that the Catholic Church ordered Catholics to emigrate to major U. S. cities where they could assume control and claimed that the civil service was dominated by Catholics who remitted part of their pay to Rome. The movement was rejected by mainstream Republicans and faded away in the mid-1890s.
An offshoot of the APA, the Protestant Protective Association
Protestant Protective Association
The Protestant Protective Association was an anti-Catholic group in the 1890s based in Ontario, Canada, associated with the Orange Order. Originally a spinoff of the American group the American Protective Association, it became independent in 1892...
(PPA) was set up in the Canadian province of Ontario in 1891. It drew support from Orangemen
Orangemen
Orangemen can refer:*Historically, to supporters of King William III of Orange.*To members of the modern Orange Institution - a Protestant fraternal organisation.*To the former name of male sports teams of Syracuse University, now called the Orange....
in the 1890s, before going into decline. Its leaders opposed Catholic influence and supported the Imperial Federation
Imperial Federation
Imperial Federation was a late-19th early-20th century proposal to create a federated union in place of the existing British Empire.-Motivators:...
. A PPA was also set up in Australia.
The Second Ku Klux Klan
The Second Ku Klux Klan, which was formed in 1915, combined Protestant fundamentalism and moralism with right-wing extremism. Its major support came from the urban south, the midwest and the Pacific Coast. While the Klan initially drew upper middle class support, its bigotry and violence alienated these members and it came to be dominated by less educated and poorer members. The Klan claimed that there was a secret Catholic army within the United States, that one million Knights of ColumbusKnights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus is the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization. Founded in the United States in 1882, it is named in honor of Christopher Columbus....
were arming themselves, and Irish policemen would shoot Protestants as heretics. They claimed the Catholics were planning to take Washington and put the Pope in power, and that all presidential assassinations had been carried out by Catholics. The prominent Klan leader, D. C. Stephenson
D. C. Stephenson
David Curtiss "Steve" Stephenson was an American Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. state of Indiana and 22 other Northern states. He is considered to have been one of the most successful Klan leaders up until his downfall after his conviction for murder...
claimed that international Jewish bankers were behind the First World War and planned to destroy economic opportunities for Christians. Other Klansmen claimed that the Russian Revolution and Communism were controlled by Jews. The Klan frequently reprinted parts of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
and New York was condemned as an evil city controlled by Jews and Catholics. The objects of Klan fear however tended to vary by locale and included Catholics, Jews, African Americans, Wobblies, Orientals, unions and liquor. The Klan were also anti-elitist and attacked "the intellectuals", seeing themselves as egalitarian defenders of the common man.
British subjects who became naturalized Americans were encouraged to join the "Riders of the Red Robe", and the Klan was successful in establishing branches in several Canadian provinces, although they disappeared after 1930.
The Great Depression
During the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
there were a large number of small nativist groups, whose ideology and support were similar to those of earlier nativist groups. However protofascist movements, such as Huey Long
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...
's Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth was a movement begun during the Great Depression by Huey Long, a governor and later United States Senator from Louisiana.-Major provisions of "Share Our Wealth":The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:...
and Father Coughlin's National Union for Social Justice emerged, which differed from other right-wing groups by attacking big business, calling for economic reform and rejecting nativism. However, Coughlin's group later developed a racist ideology.
The Black Legion
Black Legion (political movement)
The Black Legion was an organization that splintered from the Ku Klux Klan and operated in the United States in the 1930s. The organization was founded by William Shepard in east central Ohio...
, which had a peak membership of 40,000 was formed by former Klansmen and operated in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Unlike the Klan, its members dressed in black and its organizational hierarchy was based on the military, not fraternal organizations. Its members swore an oath to keep "the secrets of the order to support God, the United States Constitution, and the Black Legion in its holy war against Catholics, Jews, Communists, Negroes, and aliens". The organization went into decline after more than fifty members were convicted of various crimes in support of the organization. The typical member was from a small farm in the South, lacked a high school graduation diploma, was married with children and worked in unskilled labor.
Gerald B. Winrod
Gerald B. Winrod
Gerald Burton Winrod was a pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic evangelist, author, and political activist.-Biography:...
, a fundamentalist Christian minister who founded the Defenders of the Christian Faith revived the Illuminati conspiracy theory that have originally been introduced into the United States in 1798. He claimed that both the French and Russian Revolutions were directed by a them and saw the Protocols of the elders of Zion as an accurate expose of a Jewish conspiracy. He saw the Jews, the Catholics, the Communists and the bankers as working together to destroy American Protestantism. Although Winrod's appeal was mainly limited to rural, poor, uneducated fundamentalist Christians, his magazine The Defender reached a peak circulation of 100,000 in the late 1930s.
William Dudley Pelley
William Dudley Pelley
William Dudley Pelley was an American extremist and spiritualist who founded the Silver Legion in 1933, and ran for President in 1936 for the Christian Party.-Family:...
's Silver Shirts movement was overtly modelled on European fascism and introduced a populist statist plan for economic organization. The United States would be reorganized as a corporation, with individuals paid according to their contributions, although African Americans, aboriginals and aliens would be treated as wards of the states and therefore hold a lower status. The organization blamed the Jews for the depression, Communism, and the spread of immorality, but openly welcomed Catholic membership. Its membership was largely uneducated, poor and elderly, with a high proportion of neurotics, and it had a large female membership. Its main base of support was in small communities in the Midwest and West Coast, and it had almost no presence in the Southern States.
Father Coughlin was a Catholic priest who had begun broadcasting on religious matters in 1926. However when his program went national in 1930, he began to comment on political issues, promoting a strongly ant-Communist stance, while being highly critical of American capitalists. He urged government to protect workers, denounced prohibition and held the "international bankers" responsible for the depression. By 1932 he had millions of regular viewers. The following year he set up the "National Union for Social Justice". Although an early supporter of the U. S. president, Franklin Roosevelt, he broke with him in 1935 when Roosevelt proposed that the United States join the World Court
Permanent Court of International Justice
The Permanent Court of International Justice, often called the World Court, was an international court attached to the League of Nations. Created in 1922 , the Court was initially met with a good reaction from states and academics alike, with many cases submitted to it for its first decade of...
. Coughlin then denounced the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
, which he claimed had accomplished little but had strengthened the position of the bankers. His organization became increasingly supportive of European fascism.
In 1936 Coughlin began to endorse candidates for political office and supported the presidential campaign of William Lemke
William Lemke
William Frederick Lemke was a United States politician.-Life and career:He was born in Albany, Minnesota, and raised in Towner County, North Dakota, the son of Fred Lemke and Julia Anna Klier, pioneer farmers who had accumulated some of land...
, who campaigned on the Union Party
Union Party (United States)
The Union Party was a short-lived political party in the United States, formed in 1936 by a coalition of radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, old-age pension advocate Francis Townsend, and Gerald L. K. Smith, who had taken control of Huey Long's Share Our Wealth movement after Long's assassination...
ticket. Lemke was also supported by Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade...
, head of the Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth was a movement begun during the Great Depression by Huey Long, a governor and later United States Senator from Louisiana.-Major provisions of "Share Our Wealth":The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:...
movement and Dr. Francis Townsend
Francis Townsend
Dr. Francis Everett Townsend was an American physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during the Great Depression. Known as the "Townsend Plan," this proposal influenced the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security system...
, head of the Townsend Old Age movement. At the time Couglin claimed 5 million supporters of his organization, while Smith claimed his organization had 3 million members. In the election however Lemke received fewer than 900,000 votes.
Following this setback, Coughlin became more overtly fascist, attacking trade unionists and politicians for being pro-Communist, calling for a corporate state and setting up the "Social Justice Councils", which excluded non-Christians from membership. His magazine, Social Justice
Social Justice (periodical)
Social Justice was a periodical published by Father Coughlin in the 1930s and early 1940s. It was controversial for printing antisemitic polemics such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Coughlin claimed that Marxist atheism in Europe was a Jewish plot against America...
, named Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
as man of the year in 1938 and defended Hitler's persecution of Jews, whom he linked with Communism. Major radio stations then refused to air his broadcasts and the Post Office banned Social Justice from the mails in 1942. Threatened by a sedition trial against Father Coughlin, the Catholic Church told him to cease his political activities and Couglin retired from political life.
Huey Long
Huey Long
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , nicknamed The Kingfish, served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D...
who had been elected governor of Louisiana in 1928 and was a U. S. senator from 1932 until his death in 1935, built a national organization, Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth
Share Our Wealth was a movement begun during the Great Depression by Huey Long, a governor and later United States Senator from Louisiana.-Major provisions of "Share Our Wealth":The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:...
, which made a populist appeal. As governor, Long removed the poll tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
and directed state spending to the improvement of schools and rural roads. He attacked "the corporations and urbanites, the 'better elements' and the professional politicians." At the time of his death, his organization had, according to its files, over 27,000 clubs with a total membership of almost 8 million. Long was considered to be right-wing because of his authoritarian style, building a large National Guard and police force, intimidating opponents and the press, and bringing the electoral process and prosecution service under his direct control. Long never introduced minimum wage or child labor laws, unemployment insurance or old age pensions, although other states did so at the time. He actively courted support from big business, and reduced taxes on corporations. He differed from other right-wingers by making no appeal to conspiracy theories, nativism, or morality. He worked closely with Catholics and Jews and never appealed to race issues. However he chose Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade...
, who was associated with the fascist Silver Shirts to organize his Share the Wealth movement. But the movement died out following Long's death.
McCarthyism
Although the United States emerged from the Second World War as the world's strongest country both economically and militarily, Communism had also been strengthened. Communism had spread in Eastern Europe and southeast Asia, and there were numerous Communist insurgencies. At the same time, Communist espionage had been found in the U. S. Responding to the fears the new enemy presented, Joe McCarthy, a Republican U. S. senator from Wisconsin, claimed in 1950 that there were 205 Communist spies in the State Department. The main target of McCarthyism however was ideological nonconformism, and individuals were targeted for their beliefs. Black lists were established in many industries restricting the employment of suspected nonconformists, and libraries were pressured to remove books and periodicals that were considered suspect. McCarthy investigated Voice of AmericaVoice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
and although no Communists were found, 30 employees were fired as a result. The strongest support for McCarthyism came from German and Irish Catholics who had been isolationist in both world wars and had an anti-British bias and opposed socialism on religious grounds. Much of the hostility was directed against the Eastern elites. Following the 1952 election in which the Republicans were successful, McCarthy continued his investigations into the new Republican administration until the Republican party turned against him.
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society, which was created in 1958, combined economic liberalismEconomic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
with anti-Communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
. The founder, Robert Welch, Jr., believed that the greatest enemy of man was government, and the more extensive the government, the greater the enemy. To him, government was inherently corrupt and a threat to peace. He advocated private institutions, local government and rigid individuality.
Welch wondered why the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, had helped destroy Joe McCarthy, made peace with the Communists in Korea, refused to support anti-Communist movements abroad, and had extended the welfare state. His conclusion was that Eisenhower was either a Communist or a dupe of the Communists. Already, the U. S. A. government was 60% to 80% under Communist control. Welch saw the Communist conspiracy as controlled by the Illuminati, which he thought had directed the French and Russian Revolutions, and was behind the current civil rights movement. They were also responsible for welfare programs, central banking, progressive income taxation and the direct election of U. S. senators. Welch identified William Morgan
William Morgan (anti-Mason)
William Morgan was a resident of Batavia, New York, whose disappearance and presumed murder in 1826 ignited a powerful movement against the Freemasons, a secret fraternal society that had become influential in the United States...
, William Wirt
William Albert Wirt (educationalist)
William Albert Wirt was a superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana. Wirt developed the Gary Plan for the more efficient use of school facilities, a reform of the Progressive Movement that was widely adopted in other cities....
and Joe McCarthy as people who been killed for their attempts to expose the Illuminati
Illuminati
The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...
. Morgan's murder presumably by Masons had led to the earlier Anti-Masonic movement, Wirt had denounced the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and McCarthy had claimed to have discovered a Communist conspiracy.
American Independent Party
The 1968 presidential campaign of George WallaceGeorge Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
created a new party, which in later years came under the control of Radical Right elements. In 1969, the party had split into two groups, the anti-Communist American Party (AIP) under the leadership of T. Coleman Andrews
T. Coleman Andrews
Thomas Coleman Andrews was an accountant and an independent candidate for President of the United States....
and another group under the AIP founder Bill Shearer
Bill Shearer
William Kennedy Shearer of California was the chairman of the Constitution Party from 1996 to 1999, and founded the American Independent Party in 1967 with his wife Eileen to support George C. Wallace's presidential campaign. In 1970 Shearer was the California AIP's first candidate for Governor,...
. Both groups opposed federal intervention into schools, favored police suppression of domestic disorder and victory in the Vietnam War. The two groups united under the American Party banner in order to support the 1972 presidential campaign of George Wallace, but after he withdrew they nominated U. S. Representative John Schmitz.
In Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, Ned Touchstone
Ned Touchstone
Ned O'Neal Touchstone was a newspaper publisher who was a leader of the [Conservative Right-Wing Movement]] in Louisiana politics during the 1960s...
, a Wallace supporter, edited a conservative newsletter, The Councilor, through which means he attacked liberals in both major parties. The Councilor was the publication of the White Citizens' Council. In 1967, Touchstone ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat against Louisiana Education Superintendent Bill Dodd, who carried the support of party moderates, liberals, and African Americans.