The Far Right’s Public Plan to Take Over the GOP
Richard Viguerie. What can be written about him? His nickname was “the founding father of the Religious Right”. He founded RAVCO, which was a fundraising organization that raised money for… well, who didn’t it raise money for?
In his book, Takeover, Viguerie laid out a detailed plan of how the far right could take over the Republican Party. It is a fascinating book, one that may not have had an overwhelming impact, but the ideas within the book have. It traces a (faulty) history of the Republican Party from Teddy Roosevelt to the 2010s, just before the rise of Donald Trump. One of the key features of Viguerie’s argument is the value of conservative woundedness. He and his friends in the New Right bragged that they organized discontent. In Takeover, we can see why they organized it–to get their kind of people into office.
In this special episode, Chris walks listeners through the book and the impact of the ideas inside.
Sources:
- Takeover by Richard Viguerie
- Reaganland and Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein
- The Evangelicals by Frances Fitzgerald
- God’s Own Party by Daniel K Williams
- Revive Us Again by Joel Carpenter
- These Truths by Jill LePore
- A Choice Not An Echo by Phyllis Schlafly
- The Lord’s Prayer
Discussion Questions:
- Who was Richard Viguerie?
- What are some of his grievances?
- Why do you think he skipped the Republican presidents of the 1920s in his history?
- What did he think of FDR? Of Robert Taft?
- How do you see the conservative wound in this book?
- What were some of Viguerie’s prescribed tactics for taking over the GOP?
