The John Birch Society Never Left
Why it’s foolish to think the modern GOP will ever break with its lunatic fringe
Illustration by Evangeline Gallagher
The Republican Party is facing what many observers are describing as a William F. Buckley moment a make-or-break opportunity to purge the racists and conspiracy theorists who are rapidly gaining control of the GOP.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman who has questioned whether a plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11 and suggested that Democratic political leaders could be executed for “treason,” is more popular among Republicans than Liz Cheney. A full 75 percent of Republican don’t believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, laying the groundwork for Donald Trump to incite an insurrection to steal it for real. The QAnon conspiracy theory which holds that Democrats in the Deep State undermined Trump’s presidency in order to cover up their child-sex racket, and claims Greene among its more prominent a