Ongoing US GOP Debacle Thread: Seditious Republicans march toward authoritarianism

Historian Rick Perlstein, who has written many books about the American right, is uniquely suited to place this story in the larger context of the modern conservative movement’s predilection for such grift.



At least since the 1960s, Perlstein argues, conservative elites have seen extremist tendencies on the right as a ripe target for manipulation, for the purposes of mobilizing mass political movements. That has often shaded into money-raising schemes that smack of outright grift.


Perlstein has traced this pattern from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Republican presidential campaign through conservative activist Richard Viguerie’s self-serving direct mail fundraising in the 1970s. It runs through Ronald Reagan’s 1966 bidfor governor of California, his 1980 presidential race and even his hawking of miracle cancer cures.

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As is so often the case in the Republican Party under the Trumpist reign, it takes normal historical patterns of behavior and turns them up to 11.

Sargent: The “big lie” actually was the “big grift.”

Perlstein: It’s partially an opportunity to raise money. It’s also partially an opportunity to keep power. The important thing to understand about how grifting works in conservative culture is that the two things work together.


It’s impossible to understand where the ideological con ends and the money con begins. They work together.

In the late 1970s, when people started drilling down into Richard Viguerie’s operation, they would say, “You’re making tons of money, and the people you’re raising money for are receiving little or none of it.”

He would say, “Every time we send out one of these letters, we’re also educating the public. We’re also building power. We’re also telling a story about the liberals.” Their own self-understanding was: This is also a political project.

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Sargent: I want to bear down on the apocalyptic nature of these movements. Right now, various offshoots of this apocalyptic politics — for instance, the “great replacement theory” — are inspiring mass shootings and serious political violence.


Perlstein: If you think the stakes are whether civilization itself survives, and that you’re dealing with a cabal of shadowy enemies, of course you’re licensed to use any means to stop them.












If the stakes are racial replacement, and the shadowy enemies are the Jews said to be controlling the replacement of Whites, then it’s okay to kill Jews. It’s okay to shoot up Black churches. It’s okay to shoot up a Walmart.

Sargent: Does the fact that Republican leaders aren’t unambiguously condemning these tendencies fit into a broader history, in which conservative elites have frequently failed to police extremists on the right?

Perlstein: One of the patterns since time immemorial is that mainstream conservative Republican leaders have fully understood that they benefit from these forces politically.


That was precisely the context for Barry Goldwater’s convention speech, when he said “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” That was his way of saying to the extremists: “I don’t intend to condemn you. I welcome you into our fold.”
And the extremists of that time were burning down churches in Mississippi. The extremists of that time were murdering civil rights workers and burying them under earthen dams. This was literally the same month as the Republican convention.


Sargent: Do you think that pattern has recurred over and over?

Perlstein: Ronald Reagan played the same game in 1966. He played it in 1980. Newt Gingrich played it. The people astroturfing the tea party played it. The people who thought they could use and control Donald Trump as their ally played it in 2016. Now they’re reaping the whirlwind.

One of the canny things that the Jan. 6 select committee is doing is establishing a direct connection between the Republican Party’s parliamentary and paramilitary wings. Like prosecutors, they’re saying, “Here are the individuals who communicated with people within the White House, in order to basically spur the mob to breach the Capitol.”

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WakeForestRanger said:

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WakeForestRanger said:

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TimmyClutch said:

Maybe if they actually wore Brown Shirts in all their commercials people would get it.

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ImTheCaptain said:

would probably make it more popular

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Louis Gossett Jr said:

Don’t worry no underlying calls for violence here.

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