This 1967 show about Texas's right-wing billionaire H.L. Hunt is fascinating, and feels shockingly contemporary (despite the dated hair, clothes, and B/W film). Check out the description of Hunt's politics starting at 12:43. americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aa…
“It’s beyond conservatism...a point of view which implies... that social progress like Medicare is a dangerous thing & that we’re selling the country down the road to Socialism. As anyone who follows the radical right dialectic knows, liberalism = socialism = communism.”
At 13:45 they describe the extensive media empire that Hunt has built and uses to disseminate his apocalyptic ideas about the impending communist destruction of America from without and within. This is the 50+ year old genealogy of Infowars and Breitbart.
At 28:10 Hunt calls for the privatization of the Postal Service. Sounds familiar. washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump…
At 29:12 he's asked about the Civil Rights Movement. Boy howdy. At 30:49 he announces that minorities are running the American government. Remember, this is 1967.
At 32:30 we hear Hunt's theory that he needs to spend so much money influencing public opinion with his far right ideas because 90% of the media is controlled by "the opposition." Americans were being brainwashed by the liberal media, Hunt thought.
At 36:25 we learn that Hunt thinks Coolidge's was the last successful administration. Coolidge fandom is all the rage amongst a certain set of contemporary conservative intellectuals.
It strikes me that the contemporary GOP has far more to do with H.L. Hunt than William F. Buckley...and also, that Buckley and Hunt had far more in common than most folks would have thought back in the day.
At 42:40 he's asked if perhaps as a man of faith that Christ had called him to do more with his great wealth to help others. Hunt says the best thing he can do is give people a chance to work for a living--blessed are the job creators.
Around 50:00 Hunt offers some thoughts on the Warren Commission report on JFK's assassination. He opens by pointing out that it was set up 3 days after The Daily Worker called for it to be created. Oof.
53:17. "Mr. Hunt believes that anyone to the left of Calvin Coolidge is some kind of a scoundrel...this eccentric opinion is made dangerous because he bankrolls organizations that peddle these ideas."
Watching this made me slightly nostalgic for the days when the tin foil hat wearing billionaires who were trying to meld the country's politics & opinions to fit their own predilections were at least willing to sit down for an interview with someone who disagreed w/ them.
