More often, like other ultra-right organizations that would evolve from the John Birch Society, during campaign seasons, these zealots provided an army of willing labor for far-right Republicans trying to topple the eastern, elite establishment that the Birch-affiliated activist Phyllis Schlafly dubbed "the king makers" in her 1964 self-published book, A Choice, Not An Echo. Gathering the remnants of Senator Joe McCarthy's supporters, white supremacists, libertarians, and former America Firsters under one umbrella, the John Birch Society was playing an active role in American politics only four years after it was founded.īy 1962, Birchers were running for office as Republicans, and some were winning. Still, it was not an insignificant force in American politics. In the late 1950s, the John Birch Society may have been on the fringe of the Republican Party.
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