Mulloy makes brief mention of the Birchers positive view of McCarthyism, and their “attempts to revive the conspiratorial logic of the red scare,” but doesn’t give much background on the history of America’s anti-communism, or a longer conspiratorial past. That is not to say that he would disagree with Hofstadter’s claims, likely quite the opposite. Indeed, towards the end of the Birch Society’s height in the 60s, he mentions that Welch directly referenced the Illuminati, and was himself embracing some of the more traditional embodiments of the “paranoid style.” Mulloy even believes that this style of politics to some degree continues today, and one of the main reasons he wrote the book was to shed light on the “interesting and suggestive …show more content…
The political turmoil 1960s is often thought of as a radical time where many young, educated, progressives campaigned for movements like the anti-war, or sexual liberation movements, greatly altering the social order. However, Stone’s study shows that there was a version of this on the right as well; where young, educated, political active conservatives, became Birchers and did the very same thing, only in the opposite direction. The data from Stone’s article seems to suggest that the radical times of the 1960s, caused people to move to the extremes of either side of the political spectrum. Perhaps because of when he was writing, Hofstadter doesn’t quite acknowledge the extreme political times that he was living in, (with the obvious exception of the Cold War), however Nash, Mulloy and even Duchuk see these mass political movements happening at the same time. Most clearly it is reflected by the New Conservative movement represented by Goldwater, but also many of Left Wing movements like the civil rights, sexual liberation and anti-war campaigns of the 60s. It was a political active time and many conservatives became politically active in groups like the John Birch