The Council for National Policy, Or the Radical Right‘s Shadow Network w/ Anne Nelson

On this edition of Parallax Views, Donald Trump recently opined, in a now infamous with Laura Ingraham for Fox News, that Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden was being controlled by "people in the dark shadows". This, of course, should come as no surprise given that conspiratorial mutterings about globalist elites hellbent on destroying the United States of America has become a hallmark of Trump's base. In fact, one can find ideations of a paranoid variety amongst rather visible elements of the American right-wing going back to the day of Senator Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare as well as in right-wing media outlets and organizations like WorldNetDaily and the John Birch Society. Even prior to Trump, figures like Alex Jones and Jerome Corsi promoted what historian Richard Hofstadter referred to as "The Paranoid Style in American Politics".

In the 1990's, the militia and "Patriot" movement were driven by fears that the Clinton administration, specifically after Ruby Ridge and Waco, would usher in draconian martial law with the help of agencies like FEMA or, in some theories, the United Nations. Interestingly, then First Lady Hillary Clinton was roundly mocked at this time for offering a paranoid alternative to the right's vision of dystopia being ushered in by her husband. There existed, she said, a "vast right wing conspiracy" to undermine Bill Clinton's Presidency. This, of course, was roundly mocked as the delusional rantings of a "moonbat" or "wingnut". But was Clinton's accusation completely unfounded? Has the American right-wing been projecting when it lobs allegations of unpatriotic and sinister plots against Democrats and the Left?

Veteran journalist Anne Nelson makes the case in her new book, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, that the American Right, specifically through a sorely underdiscussed and shadowy organization, has been engaging in a certain kind of subterfuge that isn't far off from being a "vast right wing conspiracy". In this explosive new book Nelson, whose journalistic exploits includes covering the U.S. support of right-wing death squads in El Salvador during the Reagan Presidency, details the under-the-radar machinations of the Council for National Policy. Modeled as a conservative equivalent to the Council on Foreign Relations, a favorite target of right-wing paranoia, the CNP claims 501(c) 3 status. But, as Nelson notes, the CNP operates in a completely different way than the CFR. According to Nelson, it acts as a network that connects the right's ideologues to the money people that can fund their movements.

Anne Nelson joins us on this edition of Parallax Views to tell the whole story of how this organization has sought to undermine democratic processes in the USA for decades.

Among the topics covered:

How three figures, Paul Weyrich, Morton Blackwell, and Richard Viguerie came together to help form the CNP with evangelical pastor and bestselling author of the Left Behind series Tim LaHaye as its President; Weyrich's curious comments on voting and the electoral majority; Viguerie's book Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It and the comments contained within it concerning Hillary Clinton's accusations of a "vast right wing conspiracy".

- Putting the CNP in context; the war between supporters of the Barry Goldwater campaign and "Rockefeller Republicans" in the era before the CNP's founding; the Southern Baptist Church purges that preluded that CNP's founding; the arch-conservative Phyllis Schlafly, now the subject of the FX TV drama Mrs. America.

- The Democratic Party's failures, including the neglect of "Fly Over Country" and the decay of the New Deal Coalition, that Anne criticizes in the book for leaving the CNP with a base to propagandize.

- How the CNP ties into the U.S. support of death squads in El Salvador.

- The CNP and the media; how the decline of media, journalism, and newspapers has created a fertile environment for the CNP's propaganda efforts; the deleterious effects of Ronald Reagan rolling back the Fairness Doctrine.

- How connected are the Koch Bros. to the CNP?; how much of the CNP's agenda is driven by its financial backer's desire profits rather than religious beliefs of its idealogues?

- The CNP vs. the CFR; the CNP's 501(c) 3 status

- The CNP in the era of Donald Trump; the CNP's initial support of Ted Cruz over Donald Trump; the deal that the CNP cut with the Trump Presidency; the CNP's connections to the coronavirus pandemic through "America's Frontline Doctors" and Dr. [CENSORED] as outlined in her new Washington Spectator piece "Anatomy of Deception: Team Trump Deploys Doctors to Push Fake Cure for COVID" (see: hydroxychloroquine).

All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views! 

This Episode Brought to You By:

The War State:
The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963
by
Michael Swanson
of
The Wall Street Window