Richard DeVos

Um, and, uh, Steve Van Andel, who's the son of Jay Van Andel, Amway's co-founder.

And at that time I believe he was co chairperson him and, um, the son of Rich DeVos.

They were co-chairpersons at that time.

So they're

They're known for being tight.

And it just goes through the whole culture.

It goes through You know, the fact that, you know, Rich DeVos and J.

Van Andel were of Dutch ancestry, and boy, did they bring that going Dutch forward, you know, in spades.

All you have to do is get your attitude right, align your will, tap this power of the universe, power of God, really interchangeable.

And, you know, in the case of somebody like Rich DeVos, who wrote a lot on this, get out there and start selling Amway, right? Like you can succeed.

Systemic inequality does not exist.

This is the power of the mind, the power of your attitude.

You've got, you know, eventually you've got Christian radio and you've got very deliberate decision making going on about who is our target audience? What does she want to hear? And how can we cater to her whims and keep her coming back for more? Same thing with Christian bookstores.

So, you know, as a cultural historian, I'm looking at these cultural products, but I'm always also very much looking at the behind the scenes.

Who is doing what? And then who is in the room together? Who is in the room together in the mid-1970s, years before Jerry Falwell's moral majority, to strategize how to take America back for God? It is Amway's Rich DeVos.

along with Campus Crusades, Bill Bright, and Senator John Conlon, right? They have this plan and they're ready to carry it out.

The, the way to say, "Of course, this all benefits women," because women are stepping forward and leading some of these movements.

Which, which really came to a head for me when you quoted Betsy DeVos-

Mm

... who served as Trump's Secretary of Education-

You don't have systemic sin because everything is the power of the individual.

All you have to do is get your attitude right, like align your will, tap this power of the universe, power of God, really interchangeable, and, you know, the case of somebody like Rich DeVos, who wrote a lot on this, get out there and start selling Amway, right? [laughs] Like you, you can succeed.

And if you are raising issues like systemic inequality, systemic racism, clearly you are focusing on negative things, and no wonder you are not succeeding.

This is how this ideology works, and it works profoundly well.

You hear this in Christian romance novels.

You hear all the time in multilevel marketing companies, not coincidentally, many of which are founded by evangelicals like Rich DeVos.

Yeah.

Well, and again, none of this has anything to do with Jesus who modeled critical thinking against religious leaders and who broke the law to treat women as equals.

It's very tantalizing and that's why we see tens of millions of women drawn into these ultimately very manipulative systems where only a very, very small number turn any significant profit.

And this is deeply wrapped up with right-wing politics, especially the DeVos family and Amway, but they're not alone.

Yep.

That's another thing that I really uncovered in this book, that if you look at the DeVosses, Rich DeVos plays a very important role.

He and Jay Van Andel, of course, started Amway.

And another figure here is Mary Crowley.

She goes on to become the first woman on the board of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

And what we see is these millionaires, very wealthy individuals, end up funneling a lot of this money into evangelical organizations and right-wing political organizations.

It's very tantalizing and that's why we see tens of millions of women drawn into these ultimately very manipulative systems where only a very, very small number turn any significant profit.

And this is deeply wrapped up with right-wing politics, especially the DeVos family and Amway, but they're not alone.

Yep.

That's another thing that I really uncovered in this book, that if you look at the DeVosses, Rich DeVos plays a very important role.

He and Jay Van Andel, of course, started Amway.

And another figure here is Mary Crowley.

She goes on to become the first woman on the board of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

And what we see is these millionaires, very wealthy individuals, end up funneling a lot of this money into evangelical organizations and right-wing political organizations.

Oh my God.

So two of Nutrilite's best sellers, Rich Devos and Jay Van Andel, watched the FDA circus and got pretty nervous, because in 1959 they spun off their own company to try to sell the model itself.

They were like, "We love what you're doing with these vitamins.

Don't love the vitamins, but clearly you can make a shit-ton of money doing this." They named it the American Way.

And so they mobilized a pro-capitalist movement Christianity Today was funded by some of these capitalists.

And if you fast forward then to the 1970s, you get somebody like Rich DeVos from Amway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

We just have to, like, take all these pieces of American history and and realize that the same guys are behind all of these things.

And then it's not just Rich DeVos, but we have Mary Crowley, who runs her own Christian multilevel marketing company or direct sales home interiors.

And then Mary Kay, who takes that model and adds the multilevel marketing to it.