The latest Fox News/Ron DeSantis talking point about contemporary anti-racism being "a nefarious Marxist plot to brainwash our children" recycles a very old, right wing formulation. Here it is expressed succinctly in a right wing newsletter from August 1957.

This author, probably Willis Carto who edited this newsletter, reframes the Lincolnian ideal of multi-racial democracy as Marxism. This white nationalist backlash occurred in the context of the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and the Brown v. Board decision of 1954.

The implications, as Carto saw them, were that African-Americans should be "repatriated" to Africa. Yes, that's where that "anti-racists are Marxists" talking point took Carto and the readers of this newsletter. This is August 1957.

"E.L. Anderson" was a pseudonym that Carto used. This is the masthead of the magazine these screenshots come from. It was part of a right wing movement in the late 50s and early 60s to either take over the GOP, or form a third party of "true patriots."

Carto set up a "Liberty Lobby" in DC. The way he frames the project (Liberty loving patriots vs. un-American special interests) has some real "drain the swamp" energy. This is from September 1957.

This newsletter had a running segment called "Persecution of the Right" that featured stories of conservatives being unfairly cancelled (though they didn't use that term). The basic format of these stories should sound eerily familiar.

This newsletter, Right, was profoundly antisemitic & racist. It also featured many "patriotic" former military officers on its pages, like Pedro del Valle who supported fascists all his life and served on the advisory board of a neo-Nazi organization in the 1970s.

June 1957.

In the late 1960s Carto's Liberty Lobby came under scrutiny from the mainstream press. His group had floated just off the right edge of the GOP from the late 50s till then. Here's a thread about when they got exposed. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1389983736960192515?s=20

The Liberty Lobby still hung in there, still sending people to testify before Congress, still doling out money to dozens of members of Congress. In 1981 the Reagan Administration tried to appoint a former Liberty Lobby staffer to an HHS post. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1343102825983746049?s=20

The Reagan Admin made this gaffe TEN YEARS AFTER the very conservative Arizona Republic tried to officially cancel the Liberty Lobby. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1390194726754689026?s=20