The Republican Party burned itself: How years of racist demagoguing paved the way for this terrifying moment

The Republican Party burned itself: How years of racist demagoguing paved the way for this terrifying moment

"American conservatism has become a movement based more on the extremist spirit of Robert Welch than the ideals of William F. Buckley. The former, who founded the John Birch Society (along with Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers), promoted outlandish and paranoid conspiracy theories in the sixties, even once implying that President Dwight Eisenhower was a communist infiltrator. His organization was an ally of Alabama governor and anti-segregationist George Wallace, and once claimed that the Civil Rights movement was Moscow-backed, with the intention of creating a “Soviet Negro Republic.” This bizarre extremism earned condemnation from Buckley and his publication, National Review, and the Birch Society was designated to the fringe of the conservative movement. But no longer. This paranoid style is now a part of mainstream conservatism, and birther is the new Bircher. Donald Trump is the demagogue that crazies and racists have long waited for, and the GOP establishment, which is now in full-blown panic mode, created this monster."