In August of 1961 Fred Schwarz, an early pioneer in right wing grifting, held an Anti-Communism Crusade at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The speech by Dale Evans at 7:30 is particularly of note. https://vimeo.com/18639586 

It's notable not just because Roy Rogers lovingly calls her "mother" when he takes over the microphone from her, but also because her speech strikes me as something we might hear, practically verbatim, at the 2020 RNC.

Note the prosperity of the crowd, & it's not just because people dressed more formally. These events (just like John Birch Society events) drew middle & upper-middle class white people. And also note the tone of victimization--these folks feel like strangers in their own country.

Roy Rogers (12:00): The US can stop Communism "If every red-blooded American will stand up and call a spade a spade, black is black and white is white. It's getting to the point nowadays everything's grey. Everybody's afraid to say it's black because it might cost you something."

Roy Rogers (cont'd): "Or they're afraid to say it's white or they'll call you a rabble rouser, they coin these names you know and really taken advantage of them. Rabble rouser, if you're a little far right it's one thing or another, that's to confuse the public."

"And believe me they've confused about 180 million Americans. And what gets me is that we just stand and listen to them and take it, most of us. And I for one just look to God for guidance and look for those red blooded Americans."

"If pro-God and pro-America means I'm a righist, there's no one on the other side of me. We need that kind of thinking, we don't need those kind of confusing things that we do here with these elections. They get the people so confused they don't to vote for anybody."

Here's footage from one of the anti-communism crusades in Cincinnati. At 18:40 we see Janet Greene, conservatism's answer to Joan Baez, singing her anti-communist hit "The Termites." https://vimeo.com/18274192 

Here's Janet Greene singing her most famous hit, "Commie Lies." It starts at 17:45. https://vimeo.com/18243792 

Schwarz lived a long life. Several of his students went on to work for the Reagan Admin. And in this newsletter from 2004, Schwarz proudly notes that Ronald Reagan attended his 1961 Anti-communism crusade in LA, the one with Dale Evans and Roy Rogers. http://www.schwarzreport.org/uploads/schwarz-report-pdf/schwarz-report-2004-08.pdf

And it wouldn't be a Schwarz report without some good old red-baiting of the Democratic Party. This is courtesy of William F. Buckley and the National Review, ca. 2004.

One last bizarre contemporary link. In 1998 Dana Rohrbacher (R-Ca) took illegal trips to Burma & Afghanistan sponsored by Schwarz's anti-communism crusade. He and Schwarz were pals from the late 60s when Rohrbacher was in Young Americans for Freedom. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-12-17-li-339-story.html

That would be Dana Rohrbacher, the guy who Kevin McCarthy said was "getting paid by Russia" and who went with Holocaust denier, Chuck Johnson, to visit Assange in London. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/10/dana-rohrabacher-loses-congressional-seat-orange-county-russia-putin

If irony hadn't died three years ago and been resurrected and reburied 47 times since then, I'd end this thread by pointing out that irony is dead.