Founded in 1958 by the businessman Robert Welch, the society was the most robust political fringe group of its day, intent upon thwarting any U.S.-Soviet coöperation, withdrawing America from the United Nations, exposing Communists in the federal government, and impeaching Chief Justice Earl Warren. There was also his ongoing attempt, in the run-up to the nomination and throughout the Presidential campaign, to thread the needle in the matter of the John Birch Society. There were things about him not to like, chief among them his constitutionally based refusal to vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It also, I suppose, offers my own bit of micro-aggression toward those colleagues-which would be all of them-who find Goldwater’s world view, if they know it, even more abhorrent than antique. It serves as a reminder of youthful political passion (I turned thirteen the day before Lyndon Johnson crushed the Arizona senator at the polls), and it pays tribute to the plainspoken candidate’s libertarian anti-Communism.

I have several reasons for keeping a half-century-old “Goldwater for President” poster on a wall of my university office.

American Extremism by D.J. Mulloy