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> What precisely caused the observed reversal of the long-term trend around 1980 remains perhaps even more difficult to pinpoint Not at all. https://newrepubl

> What precisely caused the observed reversal of the long-term trend around 1980 remains perhaps even more difficult to pinpoint Not at all. https://newrepublic.com/article/161603/john-birch-society-qanon-trump https://newrepublic.com/article/161603/john-birch-society-qa... John Birch society that was founded in 1950s to bring back mid 1800s American anti-intellectualism and religious fundamentalism grew until 1980 and eventually put Reaganites into power. Then this setup exported it to everywhere else it could export itself. Even recently, Trump was openly saying that the US was going to support right-wing movements in Europe a short time before he left the White House. Its the old, religious anti-intellectual fundamentalists that dominated the middle America in 1800s who came back and never left.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
A perfectly plausible story but society is so complex it’s probably unrealistic to pin it all on just that phenomenon.
- unity1001 4y ago
  Unfortunately it is not a story. The group started with people who convened in small bible study groups who met in each others' homes and churches. These people thought that 'America' was lost, and it should be 'taken back'. They organized and slowly grew like a sect, eventually gaining great political and economic power with those who converted to their cause and especially through the business they exclusively did among their own lot. Its not a unique story. It follows the typical religious sect proliferation mechanics that are seen in any other country. > it’s probably unrealistic to pin it all on just that phenomenon This phenomenon is the head that decides the direction of the broader American conservative spearhead groups from Reaganites to later 'Tea Party' types. They are pretty much meshed with the Evangelists now though, hard to tell them apart.
  - SequoiaHope 4y ago
    Stories can be true. But I could just as easily say that a rise in unfettered capitalism led to a loss of public good research combined with regulatory capture and large corporations pushing against any research that disagreed with them. Then there was the rise of corporate media which further eroded public inquiry to ensure that the large corporations could maintain their control over narratives. This control by the corporate media necessarily required that the viewers be trained to follow directions rather than promoting curiosity. What I said above is true also, but does not say anything about religion. So how can you say that the reason for loss of rationality is caused by the group you mention, rather than the expansion of capitalism as I have mentioned? My point is that we can say something that is definitely true but that does not prove it is the primary cause. Proving something is the primary cause in a complex system is extremely difficult.
    - unity1001 4y ago
      > But I could just as easily say that a rise in unfettered capitalism led to a loss of public good research combined with regulatory captur These are the very lot who pushed all the deregulations and created the movement to go back to 19th century capitalism by dismantling what little social democracy the US had. So if you approach it from that angle, they again come up as the source of the problem. Of course, the mechanics of the phenomenon are self-reinforcing: This religious lot deregulating capitalism causes more poverty, and poverty pushes more people to the arms of religious sects like them for support and aid.
      - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        Sure, I agree with all that. But what I’m saying is that there are so many factors that all contribute to the problem, that you might be able to say certain factors were more influential than others, but I don’t think it’s really correct to point at one factor and say “this is the cause”.
        unity1001 4y ago
        > But what I’m saying is that there are so many factors that all contribute to the problem This kind of overcomplicating the problem makes finding the solution more difficult. Regardless of many smaller factions converging in different major groups in the US, the general, society-wide dynamics follow a given pattern. This pattern is exactly the same with the religious sects or far-right nationalist cliques taking over societies that suffer from extreme inequality and strong influence of religion. In fact, I would suggest to simplyf the picture even further: The mid 19th century dynamics in which the anti-intellectual, religious lot that populated the middle parts of the country, the east coast, 'old money' type aristocrats dominated the eastern part, and the nascent Californian West that wasnt able to put itself to somewhere in that spectrum, still are the major factions that collide with each other in the US. Birchers started the movement to roll back the scientific, enlightenment ideals and left wing egalitarianism that got strengthened due to the scientific revolution and the popular movements succeeding in pushing left wing social and economic policies after World War II. It grew into Reaganites. Then when it was losing steam, its spearhead morphed into Tea Partiers and then Trumpers.
  - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
    Anti-intellectualism in USA is apparently total now.
ch4s3 4y ago
William F. Buckley basically destroyed the Birchers back in 1965[1], and Regan was a staunch anti Bircher. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch...
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  Er, Reagan turned against Welch, but he wasn't bashing Birchers proper like his peers in the era. He still needed their votes. So he wasn't full metal Q-Anon of the era, but he was probably closer to them than blue bloods. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/10/11/reagan-juggles-birchers-and-moderates-while/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/10/11/reagan-juggles...
- unity1001 4y ago
  Thinking that one single person could end an entire religious movement with 'arguments' is totally naive. Neither thinking that Reagan wasnt on board with them for speaking up against certain personas. Birchers were behind most of the administration and the circles that got that administration elected then, and they are still the spearhead of the more extreme American conservatives today. One can argue that the group is not as clear cut as it was because they meshed with a lot of other groups like the Evangelists. But the origin of what is the American reactionary movement is those Birchers.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Your being overly reductive and your take totally ignores the absolute failure of Bircher candidates to elected outside of say Georgia.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > But the origin of what is the American reactionary movement is those Birchers. The more straightforward explanation is that the reactionary movement in America is due to the anti-democratic means American liberals have used to achieve social change, which differs markedly from what is the case in other developed countries. For example, Germany and France don’t have as strong of a reactionary anti-abortion movement because they never had anything like Roe that overruled the public opinion on abortion. In America over half the country still disagrees about the ban on school prayer, including apparently the democrat Mayor of New York City: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2023/02/28/eric-adams-when-we-took-prayers-out-of-schools-guns-came-into-schools-00084832 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/20.... Meanwhile in the UK, school prayer is still legally mandatory: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/20/oxfordshire-parents-win-right-to-prayer-free-school-assembly https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/20/oxfordshir.... That law is adhered to more or less depending on the local community, and overall declining religiosity. But American liberals overruled public opinion on this more than 70 years ago. If you repeatedly use the nuclear option to overcome political opposition you’re going to generate a reaction. You don’t need a Bircher conspiracy to explain what happened.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

A perfectly plausible story but society is so complex it’s probably unrealistic to pin it all on just that phenomenon.

unity1001 4y ago
Unfortunately it is not a story. The group started with people who convened in small bible study groups who met in each others' homes and churches. These people thought that 'America' was lost, and it should be 'taken back'. They organized and slowly grew like a sect, eventually gaining great political and economic power with those who converted to their cause and especially through the business they exclusively did among their own lot. Its not a unique story. It follows the typical religious sect proliferation mechanics that are seen in any other country. > it’s probably unrealistic to pin it all on just that phenomenon This phenomenon is the head that decides the direction of the broader American conservative spearhead groups from Reaganites to later 'Tea Party' types. They are pretty much meshed with the Evangelists now though, hard to tell them apart.
- SequoiaHope 4y ago
  Stories can be true. But I could just as easily say that a rise in unfettered capitalism led to a loss of public good research combined with regulatory capture and large corporations pushing against any research that disagreed with them. Then there was the rise of corporate media which further eroded public inquiry to ensure that the large corporations could maintain their control over narratives. This control by the corporate media necessarily required that the viewers be trained to follow directions rather than promoting curiosity. What I said above is true also, but does not say anything about religion. So how can you say that the reason for loss of rationality is caused by the group you mention, rather than the expansion of capitalism as I have mentioned? My point is that we can say something that is definitely true but that does not prove it is the primary cause. Proving something is the primary cause in a complex system is extremely difficult.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > But I could just as easily say that a rise in unfettered capitalism led to a loss of public good research combined with regulatory captur These are the very lot who pushed all the deregulations and created the movement to go back to 19th century capitalism by dismantling what little social democracy the US had. So if you approach it from that angle, they again come up as the source of the problem. Of course, the mechanics of the phenomenon are self-reinforcing: This religious lot deregulating capitalism causes more poverty, and poverty pushes more people to the arms of religious sects like them for support and aid.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      Sure, I agree with all that. But what I’m saying is that there are so many factors that all contribute to the problem, that you might be able to say certain factors were more influential than others, but I don’t think it’s really correct to point at one factor and say “this is the cause”.
      - unity1001 4y ago
        > But what I’m saying is that there are so many factors that all contribute to the problem This kind of overcomplicating the problem makes finding the solution more difficult. Regardless of many smaller factions converging in different major groups in the US, the general, society-wide dynamics follow a given pattern. This pattern is exactly the same with the religious sects or far-right nationalist cliques taking over societies that suffer from extreme inequality and strong influence of religion. In fact, I would suggest to simplyf the picture even further: The mid 19th century dynamics in which the anti-intellectual, religious lot that populated the middle parts of the country, the east coast, 'old money' type aristocrats dominated the eastern part, and the nascent Californian West that wasnt able to put itself to somewhere in that spectrum, still are the major factions that collide with each other in the US. Birchers started the movement to roll back the scientific, enlightenment ideals and left wing egalitarianism that got strengthened due to the scientific revolution and the popular movements succeeding in pushing left wing social and economic policies after World War II. It grew into Reaganites. Then when it was losing steam, its spearhead morphed into Tea Partiers and then Trumpers.
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  Anti-intellectualism in USA is apparently total now.

ch4s3 4y ago

William F. Buckley basically destroyed the Birchers back in 1965[1], and Regan was a staunch anti Bircher. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch...

hindsightbias 4y ago
Er, Reagan turned against Welch, but he wasn't bashing Birchers proper like his peers in the era. He still needed their votes. So he wasn't full metal Q-Anon of the era, but he was probably closer to them than blue bloods. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/10/11/reagan-juggles-birchers-and-moderates-while/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/10/11/reagan-juggles...
unity1001 4y ago
Thinking that one single person could end an entire religious movement with 'arguments' is totally naive. Neither thinking that Reagan wasnt on board with them for speaking up against certain personas. Birchers were behind most of the administration and the circles that got that administration elected then, and they are still the spearhead of the more extreme American conservatives today. One can argue that the group is not as clear cut as it was because they meshed with a lot of other groups like the Evangelists. But the origin of what is the American reactionary movement is those Birchers.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Your being overly reductive and your take totally ignores the absolute failure of Bircher candidates to elected outside of say Georgia.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > But the origin of what is the American reactionary movement is those Birchers. The more straightforward explanation is that the reactionary movement in America is due to the anti-democratic means American liberals have used to achieve social change, which differs markedly from what is the case in other developed countries. For example, Germany and France don’t have as strong of a reactionary anti-abortion movement because they never had anything like Roe that overruled the public opinion on abortion. In America over half the country still disagrees about the ban on school prayer, including apparently the democrat Mayor of New York City: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2023/02/28/eric-adams-when-we-took-prayers-out-of-schools-guns-came-into-schools-00084832 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/20.... Meanwhile in the UK, school prayer is still legally mandatory: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/20/oxfordshire-parents-win-right-to-prayer-free-school-assembly https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/20/oxfordshir.... That law is adhered to more or less depending on the local community, and overall declining religiosity. But American liberals overruled public opinion on this more than 70 years ago. If you repeatedly use the nuclear option to overcome political opposition you’re going to generate a reaction. You don’t need a Bircher conspiracy to explain what happened.