John Birch Republicans (PJW)

John Birch Republicans was a political faction in the Republican Party primarily located in California and the Midwest beginning in the 1950s. Combining McCarthyism with the ideals of the John Birch Society, they generally were defined as holding positions of strong anticommunism, nativism, moderate support of civil rights, strong centralized government, and general conservative positions. While California was eventually dominated by the faction, in the Midwest they faced opposition from a coalition of moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats in the Objectivist League and the Farmer-Labor Party on the left. The division over interventionism in the 1970s eventually split the John Birch Republicans, most of whom were folded into the Objectivists.

Midwest
Though not the origins of the faction, the Midwest was quickly influenced by the John Birch Society due to the hold Senator Joseph McCarthy already held over the region. Society members soon became McCarthy's closest advisers, and when the senator's popularity and health declined there were rumors the Society, led in the region by factory equipment tycoon Harry Lynde Bradley, was truly running the senator's seat. Following the senator's passing in September 1957, a formal alliance between the Society, the McCarthyists, and other extreme right-wingers had been established.

Bradley ran for the Governor's seat while Henry Maier ran to fill McCarthy's. Moderates rallied under current governor Walter J. Kohler Jr, who defeated both Maier and conservative Democrat William Proxmire for the seat. To gain the seat, Kohler had to ally himself with the John Birch Republicans, with Maier becoming an adviser. Bradley became Wisconsin's Governor, defeating Vernon Thomson in the Republican Party and then Gaylord Nelson in the election.

Recognizing the John Birchers attempt to establish control of the state, Kohler's conservatives and moderates allied themselves with Proxmire's small government conservatives. When Senator Alexander Wiley moved closer to the John Birchers, Kohler's and Proxmire's alliance led to Proxmire's defeat of Wiley in the 1962 senate election. With control of both senate seats and several house seats, the formal alliance of small government conservatives was forming, soon to be named the Objectivists.