One can hardly discuss the radical right wing without including a discussion of Glenn Beck.  He's probably the most paranoid person in America.  He makes people telling stories of being abducted by aliens seem sane.

What he has done is bring the radical right wing closer to the mainstream than ever before. He has accomplished this with an elaborate and concocted scheme of conspiracy theories aimed at bringing down Democrats and, more specifically, liberals.   

However, Glenn Beck did not create the radical right.  Nor did his practice of referring to Democrats as Communists originate with him.  For that we have to go back to the 1950's and the days of McCarthyism and the beginnings of the John Birch Society.

Democrats had been in power for two decades and were the champions for progress in America.  They had risen from the ashes of the Great Depression to lead America to a time of prosperity once more.  

It was during this time that the radical right, also known as the Christian right, began to emerge in our society and to grow in numbers, although they still were not part of the mainstream.  Their main mission was to establish that the United States was a Christian nation founded by Christian men.  They even formed their own group known as the John Birch Society.

Founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, Jr. and twelve other members, including Fred Koch (Koch Industries), the society has a branch in all 50 states and have been very instrumental in the campaign to smear Democrats as Communists, a practice they adopted after Joseph McCarthy used it as part of the Red Scare he perpetrated.

 Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy ) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. 

He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.

The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is usedmoregenerallyin reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.

The "Birchers", as they came to be known, saw the practice of calling Democrats "Communists" as a way to make people hate liberals and began using the term in their propaganda messages.  

The man who actually first called Democrats "Communists" was a right-wing author and conspiracy theorist named W. Cleon Skousen.  

He hypocritically worked for the government as an official of the New Deal and later for the FBI.  He accused anyone who disagreed with him of being a Communist and was a direct influence on Glenn Beck.

With Skousen and  Welch leading the way, the group began a concerted attack on freemasons, Jews, the Illuminati, and liberals as being the driving force behind an international Communist conspiracy to take over the world...all themes Glenn Beck uses in his attacks on Democrats and liberals.

Throughout the 50's, the group led an effort to discredit Civil Rights efforts, going so far as to label President Eisenhower a Communist when he refused to become the "rubber-stamp" leader they wanted.

They also launched an attack on Republican Chief Justice Earl Warren, erecting signs thoughout the United States which read, "Impeach Earl Warren", after he wrote the majority decision in the case of Brown V. Board of Education.  They even called for the disbanding of the United Nations.

Their radicalism incensed the intellectuals of the party, including Robert Buckley, an early friend of Robert Welch, who renounced the group and tried unsuccessfully to remove Welch from leadership.

Buckley considered the attacks of the group on Eisenhower and liberals as "paranoid and idiotic libels."  He would later found the National Review.  Buckley's biographer, John P. Judis wrote that "“Buckley was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn rather than leading toward the kind of conservatism National Review had promoted.”

Even well-known Republican Conservatives, Ayn Rand and Barry Goldwater, considered the claims of the group to be crazy.  Rand wrote: " I consider the Birch Society futile, because they are not for Capitalism but merely against Communism.”

But their attacks did not lessen.  In fact they increased, especially against local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, and mental health programs. The JBS even claimed that Lyndon Johnson’s fight against communism in Vietnam was part of a communist plot aimed at taking over the United States.

The John Birch Society would get more radical as time went on, and the Radical Right now wholly supports outsourcing jobs to China and includes KKK members and neo-Nazis as valued partners as the rhetoric against minorities has increased.

In addition to the KKK and neo-Nazis, other groups associated with the far right include the Christian Right, pro-life groups, The Heritage Foundation, anti-environmentalists, neo-Confederates, and those who support corporate power.

But this coalition had been unable to cross into the mainstream for decades, that is until Glenn Beck brought their message to live television on the Fox News Channel.

To Be Continued

Thanks to Wikipedia for the biographical information on Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism.  

Thanks to https://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/06/30/an-american-stain-glenn-beck-and-the-radical-right-or-good-riddance-glenn-beck/ on which this post is based.