by Chris Staron | Aug 18, 2026 | Episodes, Season 6 - Rise of the Religious Right
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?
by Chris Staron | Dec 2, 2025 | Episodes, Season 6 - Rise of the Religious Right
How the New Right chose Jerry Falwell for The Moral Majority
The New Right had a plan–to bring evangelical Christians together as a voting bloc. But how to do that? They chose a few targets, people with big followings, and courted them. Jerry Falwell was an obvious choice. He was a fundamentalist preacher, televangelist, and the founder of Liberty University. He also had a propensity for the dramatic, seeing the end of days around every corner.
Falwell and The New Right turned evangelicals against Jimmy Carter
The New Right did not like President Jimmy Carter and did their best to turn evangelicals against him. A big job considering that Carter was an evangelical and often talked about his faith. Still, they wanted Ronald Reagan (a divorced actor with a reputation with the ladies) to be their man.
In this episode, Chris is joined by author and historian Rick Perlstein.
Sources
- Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
- article about Reinhold Niebuhr
- God’s Own Party by Daniel K. Williams
- The Evangelicals by Frances Fitzgerald
- Listen, America! by Jerry Falwell
Discussion Questions
- What was the role of the New Right in recruiting religious people?
- Why was Falwell an ideal candidate for the New Right?
- A higher percentage of evangelicals voted for Nixon than for Reagan. So why do we talk so much about Reagan as a turning point?
- What was the Moral Majority? How do we see groups like them operating today?
by Chris Staron | Apr 16, 2024 | Episodes, Season 6 - Rise of the Religious Right
What do we mean by the word “biblical”?
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Thomas McIntyre stood before the US Congress to deliver a moving speech. The man was being hounded by a fringe movement known as the New Right. The movement came from the work of men like Paul Weyrich, Howard Phillips, and Richard Viguerie. Their goal was to disrupt the Republican Party. They wanted to do away with much of the federal government and program to help the poor while simultaneously cutting taxes and increasing the military. They hoped to accomplish this by controlling direct mail. Direct mail! It sounds silly, but by inundating voters and congressional offices with bulk mail they could control the story.
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