Just to be clear, the John Birch Society was always far right and always loopy. The difference is that those loopy far right Birchers are now mainstream.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the 2015 documentary The Brainwashing of My Dad. It’s very sad, and it hit close to home for me.
What’s even more sad is that the brainwashing got worse and spread further in the years after this film.
When the most derogatory adjective in your bubble is “mainstream”, almost all of your beliefs are going to be loopy.
We’ve seen how people living in a bubble get so hidebound and over a long enough period that their talking points are, to them, conventional wisdom. A latest example with me is spending a few days with a right-wing parent in a crimson red area of a red state.
This man was always a fox news junkie but says over the last couple of years he no longer watches TV news “because it all makes me so mad”, and reads only the WSJ. He associates only with other Trump fanboys, both in real life and social media. They’re constantly bantering back and forth, sharing facebook memes with each other, high-fiving each other as they win yet another shadow boxing match against their enemies, or rather, very carefully crafted, orchestrated and framed misrepresentations of “libruls”. I tell him ( in so many words ) that he’s just tilting at windmills while the purveyors of all this nonsense laugh their way to the bank and back, but they don’t see it that way. They honestly believe their getting it straight, and to say different throws a handful of steel balls into the gears of their recreational outrage. It angers and pleases them at the same time. I say, “that’s just you!”, but no, because everybody around him and his circle are the same way. It’s just a few pockets of over-represented urban liberals that need to be mopped up, and they day will be theirs. He was shocked when I suggested that his views are about 30 percent of the country at best, and if we were to boil it down to full agreement with him on every issue, it would be more like 5 percent. The bubble is that sterile.
I second that. I’ve seen it years ago, and it’s a very interesting film. I felt bad for her and what she went through.
Having lived in Trump country for a while myself before, I could almost cut such people some slack for thinking that their views represent the vast majority of America - if it weren’t for numerous election outcomes showing that their views don’t (such as Republicans only winning the popular vote once in the last 6 presidential elections.)
But then again, that may be one reason why the view that Democrats steal elections through vote fraud is so widespread and deeply believed - because if one truly believes that 2/3 of America supports Trump, then the only way Biden could have won would have been extreme, widespread fraud.
To be fair, being totally out of touch with electoral reality isn’t exclusively a right-wing thing. I know a liberal who once said Democrats could or would soon win a 70-seat Senate majority (in the 2014 or 2016 elections).
I don’t know about the USA, but in Germany and Spain the most frightening thing about the far right is that they believe to be the moral ones. That they are right! (in the other sense of the word)
While not exclusively a far-right preoccupation, the idea that sinister forces (Big Pharma, Big Government, Big Bill Gates etc.) are plotting and carrying out global mass depopulation* (via vaccines, mostly) is among the nuttiest and most inexplicable of goofy conspiracy theories.
I am still waiting for someone, anyone to coherently explain why it is in the interest of profit-making entities and politicians to wipe out their customer/constituent base. Occasionally you’ll hear mumbling about how the Overlords intend to retain a tiny slave cohort to wait upon them after everyone else dies (shades of Dr. Strangelove), but where’s the satisfaction in no longer controlling billions of submissive beings?
*betcha didn’t know that a federal agency has quietly published a comprehensive plan called “Mass Depopulation & Euthanasia” ??!?!? 
**my current favorite conspiracy theory involves the Denver International Airport, home to Illuminati skulking along miles of subterranean tunnels, bunkers and outbuildings, swastika-shaped runways, demonic leering gargoyles and of course Blucifer the horse.
Thanks. When you explain it that way, it all makes perfect sense. Long live John-John!
All good points here. Adjacent to “The Big Lie” is the belief that election officials around the country will be rounded-up, tried for treason and hanged (or otherwise executed for crimes against the State) for going along with the switching of votes, once the “truth” emerges (as some sort of pogrom fantasy). I have seen this in their quoted rhetoric in stories about the vast amount of intimidation election officials are now receiving.
Another one is that Democrats want to turn the U.S.A. into a socialist hell-hole (without really identifying what that means). To me, this theme has more to do with the absence of a communistic adversary (U.S.S.R) in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The “Socialist” boogeyman enabled by the lefty Demoncrats fills that void nicely. The casual reader looking at the Democrats platform and policies and comparing them to actual socialist countries would see there is a large gap between the two, but the right-wing fear machine spews this “Socialism!!” BS every chance they can to keep people afraid and on-edge, especially regarding needed government spending where everyone benefits (like infrastructure, social safety nets) and not just the rich and corporations. And the rubes never really spend the time and brainpower to verify things (reading).
I have never heard this. Can I get a cite from a right-wing source?
This is indeed crazy, but is it only a ‘far right’ thing? Vax hesitancy is greater on the far right for sure, but it isn’t limited to them. For example vax hesitancy based on conspiracy theories is pretty rampant in the black community, and they are overwhelmingly Democrats. There are also a lot of anti-vax union people with exemptions because they have political clout.
Cite? From a right-wing source? I have never heard this.
This all strikes me as nut-picking. You can find someone with extreme beliefs in every political party The opposition loves to ignore the sane voices and elevate the nuts as being representative of the party. If I wanted to do this to the left I could write a book of the crazy things some of them believe.
So show me where any of these claims are held by anyone even adjacent to the mainstream of Republican politics.
You keep saying “I have never heard this”, but this crap has been all over the news.
That will be kind of hard to do if we have no idea what you think “the mainstream of Republican politics” is in the first place.
This is exactly and only what right wing media and the right does when talking about the left/liberals. It is literally their playbook that you see every day on Fox news, Newsmax, OAN etc… and every right wing social media meme floating around. They only do this, and they’ve been doing since the 90s
Is Ted Cruz one of the sane voices? The senator that complained about Big Bird promoting vaccinations?
The difference is at what level you find it in the party, and the amount found…unless of course you are pushing that “All parties are the same!” crap to excuse the side that goes overboard.
Exactly. The GOP is purging anyone from their ranks that isn’t completely extreme. Liz Cheney is not considered a Republican in her home state for crying out loud. The Democrats do not do that. We are held captive by our centrists and moderates. We are not the same.
The party that last presidential election had no platform? It’s easy: Trump Я Us
Quite literally, there is nothing else.
What haven’t you heard of? I’m not about to do your searching for you, only to be told that I haven’t found a source sufficiently right-wing for you, or that I haven’t defined “this” correctly, or that my right-wing source is secretly dismissive of the ‘JFK jr is alive and well’ phenomenon.
This is not from a “right-wing source”, but explains the whole JFK Jr thing (I was unaware of it as well). In a nutshell for those not wanting to click below, JFK Jr will return (not really dead, just hiding out in the jungles of Cambodia, or something), and take over the presidency from Biden, and then anoint Trump president again.
We’ll have to wait until Nov 22 (the date JFK Sr was assasinated) to see if this is true (not holding my breath)…
That we have voters with drivers licenses and guns this stupid is truly scary.
Thank you for identifying the kind of game-playing that is clearly at work here. This kind of argumentative technique (“oh, that’s not mainstream”, or “oh, that’s not a true right wing source”) is complete bullshit. I’m glad you nipped it in the bud.