Minting the Birchers

Today I was reminded in an interview on the Fresh Air radio show that the John Birch Society was founded by the owner of the company that makes Junior Mints.

So I checked my past posts to see what I had said in the past about the Birchers, and found that I mentioned this sad fact back in 2011.

I've said it before, but my mother despised the Birchers. When I became aware of that at age 11, it was probably the beginning of my political awareness and also marked the rise of my overt skepticism of authority figures, since it was a teacher she was commenting on.

I've never taken them seriously because of that early exposure, so I'm afraid I've been unprepared for the rise of their latter-day inheritors, who seem like hollow cartoons to me. It officially went out of business in 1972, but it lived on in people like Phyllis Schlafly and the Koch brothers. 

Now it's mainstream Republican orthodoxy.