The “New World Order” Conspiracy in American Politics from the Second Red Scare to the Great Recession of the Twenty-First Century

The term “New World Order” has been around since the early twentieth century, when early statesmen used the expression to describe a growing convergence of international political-economic structures, what we today call “globalism.”  In the midst of the second red scare, in large part due to the publication of a book called Pawns in the Game (1954), “New World Order” also started describing a conspiracy theory—one that places responsibility for the century’s historical global transformations in the hands of a small cabal of European financiers. 

Although several historians and journalists have documented the history of this conspiracy theory itself, I am interested in how the “New World Order” conspiracy has evolved from the McCarthy era to our current political landscape.  Though Americans today do not fear “reds” as in Communists, the fear of authoritarian forces conspiring to accumulate economic power and overwhelming force has reemerged.  Today’s media reformulates the red scare “New World Order” conspiracy theory with fresh themes for the current generation that I will explore in this roundtable.

This third red scare also yielded political institutions quite similar to those of the midcentury decade of repression, like the array of anti-“terror” measures taken by the Bush administration after 9/11.   I am most interested in discussing with the audience how the global “New World Order” conspiracy has changed since it fueled the system of informants, loyalty boards, and blacklists that tied citizens of the second red scare versus today’s sacrilization of personal gun ownership as the antidote to totalitarianism. This work comes will draw from analysis of second red scare conspiracy theories in my book, Mothers of Conservatism: Women of the Postwar Right (2012).