“But in recent years a political movement has emerged that fundamentally does not believe in the American idea. It claims that America is dedicated not to a proposition but to a particular religion and culture. It asserts an insidious and alien elite has betrayed and abandoned the nation’s sacred heritage. It proposes to ‘redeem’ American, and it acts on the extreme conviction that any means are justified in such a momentous project.” (p. 3)

At the core of a combination of economic pain and cultural grievance over several decades is a resentment of women. For many struggling to make ends meet in America, the sight of Taylor Swift and Oprah becoming billionaires is offensive. Some men resent having a boss that’s a woman (especially a woman of color). Some men feel threatened by woman making more money than they do. Few people thought that the Supreme Court would cancel women’s rights to a safe and legal abortion…until they did. This movement aims at the eventual elimination of voting rights for women.

In Katherine Stewart’s detailed analysis there’s a loosely organized, but concerted and generously funded, political movement that propelled Donald Trump back to the White House despite all his many flaws. These white, Christian, and conservative men feel they have “a right to rule” and the rest of us have “a duty to obey.” Their social media features “rank misogyny” and its pastoral leaders call for female subordination to male “headship.” This movement provokes racial and ethic divisions it sees as “unnatural”: LGBTQ+ basically.

We are watching Trump and Elon Musk and their minions implement Project 2025 to reduce Federal power and the social safety net. “They want to stop government from working…because they believe when government functions properly…it’s bad for industry that wants to dump pollution into our waters, or sell drugs that aren’t safe, or make a ton of money and shelter it from taxation.” (p. 151). Many proponents claim God is speaking to them and directing their heinous activities.

Stewart, who has covered the rise of religious politics for a decade, follows the money from the churches and wealthy conservative donors into the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy lays it all out. Chilling! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — 1

Part 1. Money.

California dreaming — 17

A tale of two Busches — 38

School’s out forever — 59

The room where it happens — 82

Part II. Lies.

The permanent emergency — 97

The resentment of the campus misfits — 120

Smashing the administrative state — 144

Part III. Demons.

The rise of the spirit warriors — 159

God and man in Las Vegas — 181

No exit — 195

Exporting the counterrevolution — 213

Conclusion: The way forward? — 235

Acknowledgments — 247

Notes — 249

Index — 319