Why America Still Needs the John Birch Society

Few organizations have been as consistently and as viciously slandered as The John Birch Society. In a political landscape in which the mainstream media’s aim is not to report the truth, but to suppress it, the attacks alone are a testament to JBS’s vital role in the cause of liberty.

The John Birch Society was established in 1958 by Robert W. Welch, Jr., a successful businessman and staunch anti-communist who realized the federal government was infiltrated by communist forces.

However, Welch’s studies and investigation quickly led him to determine that communism itself is a branch of a larger conspiracy — in his words, “an immoral gang of sophisticated criminals … [who] seek to make themselves the absolute rulers of the human race…. Although they now occupy most of the positions of great prestige and influence in Washington, London, and Paris … .”

In other words, Welch was a pioneer in scholarship related to what is now commonly referred to as the “Deep State,” the “Cabal,” “globalists” or various other terms. Conspiracy literature is now commonplace, and has even become a standard talking point among a certain segment of the American conservative movement in the 21st century; but a major debt must be paid to Welch, who began his writing, speaking, and activism at a time when such talk was extremely controversial in mainstream politics.

Of course, this stance resulted in JBS creating an army of enemies on both sides of the political aisle, and being something of a pariah for decades. Nevertheless, JBS weathered the storms and continued with its activism, news reporting, and research for the purpose of promoting “less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world.”

The work has clearly paid off, as evidenced by the now-mainstream adoption of longtime (and once scorned) JBS talking points, such as globalism, the dangers of free trade, the threat of internationalist organizations like the UN, the fraudulent nature of climate-change science, the destructive nature of mass migration, etc.

Moreover, JBS has experienced major growth in membership, chapters, and local influence in recent years, to such a degree that the media has found itself forced to acknowledge the return of The John Birch Society to a prominent role in the public discourse.

A 2017 Politico piece declared “The John Birch Society Is Back.”

An article at The Daily Beast in 2021 reported on the surge of support for JBS amid the organization’s involvement in activism against the unconstitutional Covid lockdowns and mask ordinances.

And just last month The Atlantic ran a story highlighting JBS’s return to an official spot at the Conservative Political Action Conference after over a decade of being blacklisted by CPAC.

So why does The John Birch Society remain relevant today? Why have its ranks grown and its publications gained in popularity even as it remains outpaced in terms of funding by well-known outfits like Turning Point USA and Daily Wire?

Ultimately, the answer is that not only is the organization dedicated to the truth (a characteristic which alone is tremendously powerful in a world dominated by lies), but JBS provides infrastructure and organization — the kind of institutional infrastructure and organization that are needed to create permanent change.

The Left has been successful in reshaping America because they astutely understood the importance of infrastructure and organization. They captured the universities, and thereby have a hold on the nation’s scholarly infrastructure, by which they control the flow of knowledge, dictating what passes for legitimate science and research. They took over the mass media and use this monopoly to tell the people what qualifies as relevant, interesting, virtuous, attractive, good, and evil.

And, of course, the Left has long been skilled at maintaining well-funded activist organizations that persist in pushing for their desired social change incrementally and patiently over the course of decades.

The failing of the Right has partly been due to the lack of organization and long-term vision. It has often been organic, a natural response by real people to the deliberate social engineering by the Left. The Right has typically been reactionary, with movements springing up in response to the Left’s excesses — as seen by the rise of the Tea Party to counteract Obama’s Affordable Care Act and the ascendance of MAGA in response to illegal immigration and NAFTA.

Movements are good; they bring people together and provide the impetus for the enacting of policy. But the disadvantage of movements is that they are temporary; they don’t last forever. Movements are flares of intense emotion — but all emotions fade eventually. Just as no person stays in a state of anger or disgust forever, the collective emotion behind any given movement runs its course. The people lose interest, go back to their lives, and wait for the next big thing to become emotional over.

This is seen on both sides of the political spectrum. The Black Lives Matter movement certainly made its mark, leaving burned cities, toppled monuments, and even dead bodies in its wake. But in the end, the protesters got bored and went home.

On the right, the draconian Covid policies gave a spotlight to the medical-freedom movement; suddenly all conservatives believed in vaccine choice, whereas before being “anti-vaxx” was looked down upon even in most conservative circles. Now, however, the movement has returned to the back burner as the average conservative is concerned by other topics, such as inflation and Donald Trump’s legal ordeals.

If movements are not supported by infrastructure, then they cannot fully leverage the heat of the moment. The Left understands this; they already have their infrastructure in place so that when something like the death of George Floyd happens, they simply hit the “go” button and deploy the human resources they spent years developing beforehand.

Moreover, without infrastructure, long-term change is unlikely, for actual structural political change takes years to iron out, requiring a level of prolonged engagement that cannot be sustained purely on a movement’s heat of the moment.

The John Birch Society provides the tools needed for a conservative, constitutionalist alternative structure. It trains and organizes activists who know they must persist year after year. It maintains a vast library of books, manuals, pamphlets, and other materials for educating the public, along with scored indexes for rating both federal and state elected officials’ adherence to the Constitution. 

In short, JBS offers the sturdy foundation the conservative movement needs if it is to have any hope of winning the long-term culture war.