20. Walter Huss and the History of Republican Radicalization, From the 1950s to Today – with Seth Cotlar

Let’s talk about the history of American conservatism, the past and present of the Far-Right, and the paths that led to Trumpism’s rise. If there is one underlying assumption that defines this podcast, it is that the central threat to democracy is the anti-democratic radicalization of the Right. In this episode, we talk about when, how, and why that actually happened – and Seth Cotlar is the perfect guest to help us tackle these questions.

Seth Cotlar is a professor of history at Willamette University and, by training, a specialist on the history of the Early American Republic, the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War. It is his interest in the political culture in America, specifically changing ideas of democracy, that has led him to focusing more on the recent past and present of the Right – especially since conservatives love to reference a bizarro version of early U.S. history in service of their political agenda.

The bulk of the episode focuses on Seth’s current project – and the life of Walter Huss. Who? Exactly. Walter Huss is a rather obscure figure, but one with immense significance. He was a leading right-wing activist in Oregon from the late 1950s all the way through the early 2000s – a far-right extremist with ties to the Neo Nazi scene and domestic terrorists. And in the late 70s, Huss managed to take over as chair of the Oregon Republican Party.

The story of Huss allows us to tackle so many crucial issues: We discuss the far-right world since the 50s, the toxic ideological landscape of antisemitism, anti-communism, and racism, the white Christian nationalist vision of and for America; we explore the far-right media landscape of that era, which sustained this extremism and its networks and also served as fertile ground for the kind of political culture that has come to take over the Republican Party; and we examine the question of how someone like Huss was able to help push the moderate Oregon GOP to the right, the role and failure of moderate elites and the Republican establishment to prevent this from happening, to stop this kind of radical insurgency.

All that leads us to reflect on the question of how much of this is not just an Oregon story, but an American story: The story of the radicalization of the Republican Party, and in that sense, a pre-history of Trump’s rise. Is there a direct path from Walter Huss to Donald Trump? This question – of how to interpret Trump’s rise, how to situate Trumpism it in the longer-term history of conservatism and the Republican Party: As an aberration and departure or as more in line with certain long-standing trends, tendencies, and impulses – is not just of academic importance: What is Trumpism? Where does it come from? What’s the right way to understand it, tackle it, hopefully defeat it? These are questions with immediate political and policy implications.

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This episode was produced by Connor Lynch