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Will the Christian Right Destroy America?
In 1969, Kevin Phillips wrote a book called "The Emerging Republican Majority." He knew his subject well--he had been chief elections and voting patterns analyst for the 1968 Nixon campaign and may well be the father of the Republicans' "Southern strategy."
Guilt and wisdom got the better of him. For the last decade, Phillips has chronicled how the Republican Party is leading us toward doom. In his new book, "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century," Phillips turns bluntly apocalyptic. Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny, democracy--these are the words that George Bush and his colleagues use to throw us off the scent of their real mission: theocracy at home, an oil empire abroad, the flag of Christ flying everywhere.
Hello, theology. Goodbye, rationality. Such a choice is only made by arrogant leaders who don't have a real idea and don't want one. No surprise, then, that they ally themselves with the wingnut strain of Christianity, which prizes faith and has the quaint belief that Adam and Eve frolicked with the dinosaurs.
Phillips offers a point of view very familiar to readers of Swami Uptown. And he has taken the time to drill down to the factual level--his book is not only cogently argued, it's densely reported. Which makes it scary as hell.
But just because it's credible doesn't mean it's true. Or rather, that it has to be true. I have nothing to base my optimism on, but I believe we will avoid the End of Empire scenario Phillips predicts.
It's not that we deserve to survive. Rather, it's the wisdom of my old Latin teacher: "Even an idiot learns after seven repetitions." Which is to say: I think pretty much everyone grasps that George Bush really is an End Times guy. That it wouldn't freak him out to be Raptured. That, in a political pinch, he's going to pray--and then bomb Iran.
But bad times call for untried solutions. I believe, at some soon point, that Democrats will find some spine--or, like Joe Lieberman, face primary challenges from my kind of candidate so intense they say, "Well, if I'm not nominated by my party, I just might run as an Independent." Or that some tipping point will be reached, and Bush will stand before us, not as the terrifying Wizard of Oz, but as pathetic Dr. Marvel, from the traveling medicine show. And that he will babble and froth, and the entire country will--as you do when you see a drunk you know staggering toward you--take care to sidestep him.
But it doesn't have to end well. Which leads us to....
Guilt and wisdom got the better of him. For the last decade, Phillips has chronicled how the Republican Party is leading us toward doom. In his new book, "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century," Phillips turns bluntly apocalyptic. Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, tyranny, democracy--these are the words that George Bush and his colleagues use to throw us off the scent of their real mission: theocracy at home, an oil empire abroad, the flag of Christ flying everywhere.
Hello, theology. Goodbye, rationality. Such a choice is only made by arrogant leaders who don't have a real idea and don't want one. No surprise, then, that they ally themselves with the wingnut strain of Christianity, which prizes faith and has the quaint belief that Adam and Eve frolicked with the dinosaurs.
Phillips offers a point of view very familiar to readers of Swami Uptown. And he has taken the time to drill down to the factual level--his book is not only cogently argued, it's densely reported. Which makes it scary as hell.
But just because it's credible doesn't mean it's true. Or rather, that it has to be true. I have nothing to base my optimism on, but I believe we will avoid the End of Empire scenario Phillips predicts.
It's not that we deserve to survive. Rather, it's the wisdom of my old Latin teacher: "Even an idiot learns after seven repetitions." Which is to say: I think pretty much everyone grasps that George Bush really is an End Times guy. That it wouldn't freak him out to be Raptured. That, in a political pinch, he's going to pray--and then bomb Iran.
But bad times call for untried solutions. I believe, at some soon point, that Democrats will find some spine--or, like Joe Lieberman, face primary challenges from my kind of candidate so intense they say, "Well, if I'm not nominated by my party, I just might run as an Independent." Or that some tipping point will be reached, and Bush will stand before us, not as the terrifying Wizard of Oz, but as pathetic Dr. Marvel, from the traveling medicine show. And that he will babble and froth, and the entire country will--as you do when you see a drunk you know staggering toward you--take care to sidestep him.
But it doesn't have to end well. Which leads us to....
