Richard Viguerie on NPR: Fresh Air With Terry Gross

[SkipNewarkDE]

Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR interviewed Ricahrd Viguerie on December 15. Mr. Viguerie has been called the "funding (sic) father of the conservative movement." During the 1970's and 1980's he pioneered political fundraising through direct-mail methods. He was on Fresh Air to plug a new book, entitled "America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power."

Terry's interview with Mr. Viguerie was quite revealing, showing that the Republican strategy of manipulating the media and the public through fear and vilification, ie. defining and creating an enemy against whom to rally, is a callous and calculated campaign.

Richard Viguerie has been a pioneer in steering the course and influence of modern conservatism, since the ill-fated loss of Barry Goldwater back in 1964. In those early years, the seeds of modern conservatism were planted as a reaction to the Republican party not being conservative enough. Past Republican Presidents such as Eisenhower were deemed by Viguerie and like-minded conservatives as being too supportive of big government, and of coddling trade-unions.

Viguerie founded a huge direct-mail organization that became a political fund-raising machine and a force to be reckoned. Their standard modus operandi was to rally the conservative movement around some polarizing issue, create a demon that would create an emotional response in the target demographic to whom they directed their mail campaigns. In the 1970's, the demon was communism. In fact, Viguerie had tremendous problems with the government appeasing big businesses that did business with the Soviet Union and other communist nations.

Mr. Viguerie was quite upfront with Terry regarding their tactics to motivate. His market studies and experience indicated that people don't donate money to political organizations if they are FOR something. Having something they are against and marketing that is a far more lucrative and powerful motivator. To paraphrase, anger and fear are the best motivators.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the conservative movement was at a loss for a group or ideal to marginalize and set up as the next "enemy." It was then that the meme became "values," and indeed, Viguerie was instrumental in the formation of the Moral Majority political action group in the early 1980's. Viguerie's direct mail efforts began assailing liberalism, abortionists and the homosexual agenda, thus focusing conservatives on a new enemy.

There was a particularly amusing segment during the interview, in which Viguerie made the claim that the homosexual agenda was out to utterly destroy society, religion, and the institution of marriage for its own nefarious ends. He qualified his comments by indicating that Americans are very tolerant, yet it is the radical leaders of the homosexual movement (There's a leader? Carson of QEFTSG?) that are bigoted and intolerant and yes, even "mean-spirited." He claims that gays really don't want to marry, but rather they want to change a social structure that has been in place for thousands of years, destroy the church and religion. These gays scream that religious people are intolerant and bigoted when the gay agenda is met with resistance. Not surprisingly, Terry Gross was a bit incredulous on this point, and actually pressed him several times to qualify and nail down his assertion, because it was so outrageous. Viguerie claimed that activist leaders of the gay community actually had desecrated Christian ceremonies, spitting out communion at St. Patrick's cathedral and other "mean-spirited" attacks on Christianity. Terry needled him a bit on this outrageous claim; it was apparent that she was not going to let him get away with propaganda unchallenged. She pointed out that perhaps it was unfair to apply a blanket label to an entire group based upon the actions of a few extreme individuals, and that it was a bit disingenuous to claim that these actions by individuals was the overall drive of an entire segment of society. Viguerie quickly changed the subject to the attack on Christianity.

Another assault, more fear, another shapeless enemy attacking a conservative institution. Another calculated enemy at which to direct the public's anger and fear in order to raise money. George Orwell's Two Minute Hate was dead on accurate.

Viguerie has a few shady dealings, according to his detractors. Apparently he has made quite a large sum of money from various non-profit groups of which he has been a part. His organization was nearly bankrupt at one point, and was bailed out by the Unification Church.

Regardless of his political leanings, his techniques of working the media and public emotions ARE worthy of examination.

[Kolesar]

1. Note that the media promulgated that voters voted on "morals" after 11/2

It seems like they already had their agenda ready to go. Thanks for writing the summary.

[Strawman]

2. This is interesting

I just read Money in Congressional Elections by Gary Jacobson for a paper I wrote this semester, and there was a bit about Viguerie in there when Jacobson was distinguishing between quid pro quo (usually large donors) and ideological donors. He used Viguerie and the campaign of Bob Dornan as examples of ideological donors.

One of the things I looked at in my paper was to see if I could find an association between the ideological gap between candidates in House races and amounts raised from small donors. In general, I didn't find a linear relationship between ideological differences and small donations, but among the candidates I studied, the one who received far and away the most money from small donors was Marilyn Musgrave, author of the constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. Awhile back someone posted an email she sent out to the email list of the Traditional Values Coalition (I think that was the name of the group). Perfect example of Viguerie's tactics in action. She raised something like $1.7 million from individuals who contributed under $200.

[TN al]

3. defining and creating an enemy against whom to rally...

...isn't this what the Nazi party did? and they get angry about pictures of * morphing into Hitler. They're not Nazis, they only play one on tv.

[Octafish]

4. Great post.

Vigurie is a mighty turd who has helped build the new Reich.

Thanks for the most informative post, SkipNewarkDE!

[not fooled]

5. the dems don't need political strategists...

...they need effing psychologists and psychiatrists to learn how to counter these sick bastards and the knee-jerk responses they can elicit from their sheeplike followers.

Yeah, no surprise that fear and hatred rule the roost with the sick bastards who support *. NOW I understand why the dumbfucks I talk to who love * come across as so stupid and ignorant.