The John Birch Society and the New Republican Party

In 1964, the John Birch Society's politics were still a tad too fringe for mainstream success. LBJ successfully painted Goldwater as something of a lunatic who would bring about nuclear apocalypse. Now everyone's fighting over themselves to announce that they're a member of whatever the new most extreme sect of the Republican Party is. That doesn't indicate progress to me. Tragic optimist, Hunter S. Thompson really got that one wrong.