“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
I don’t think I can read this right now—it is so clearly what we all knew would happen once Trump was re-elected—and, as always, books like this (no matter how good & necessary) are undoubtedly preaching to the choir.
Deb, when Ronald Reagan made that Unholy Alliance with the Religious Right it put America on this road to decline and corruption. Anti-demographic forces are in charge now.
And anti-democratic (vs. anti-Dem Party, if also that too frequently).
I suspect that America’s motto will soon be changed to “Incel We Trust.”
Jerry, or the motto might be: “We Don’t Trust Anyone.”
People need to get more informed, and vote at all levels. It puts arguably too much on them, but their not doing so allows these blithering fools (and, as Jerry notes, might as well be incels when they don’t fit that profile exactly–certainly too many incels and sympathizers make up the voter blocs for Der Drumpf) to dominate the Congress and occupy the WH.
Todd, the Democrats have a lot to answer for in allowing the Republicans to take over the Supreme Court and now the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Gross negligence!
Neoliberalism will out. Way too often.
Well, here in Texas, Trump’s sycophants have enacted a law to use taxpayers’ money to fund tuition for private (=”Christian” indoctrination) schools, and Musk is about to incorporate his own city. Trump as pope? Well, there were those of us who said Trump would never be elected president. Cardinal Dolan couldn’t even communcate outrage over that AI picture. Maybe he wasn’t outraged. Cowards.
Fred, Elon Musk just lost 40% of his wealth with the Tesla meltdown. Maybe Musk will go to Mars. The Separation of Church and State is dead. And then there’s this: “Paula White-Cain, a prominent televangelist, will be the head of the newly created White House Faith Office, serving as a Special Government Employee and Senior Advisor. She previously served as a spiritual advisor to President Trump during his first term. Jennifer S. Korn will be the Deputy Assistant to the President and Faith Director of the office. White-Cain is also the founder and president of Paula White Ministries and National Faith Advisory Board.”
“Christian”(sic) ? Not!
The “make a ton of money” part has already happened for Trump and his awful family. Clearly, they didn’t make enough from the Trump Hotel thing in the first term. This time they know Congress, led by the toadying Uriah Heep, Mike Johnson, will never say a word, so they ran the crypto scam, and now Eric and Jr. are openly making deals with the Saudis and others, because in Trump World, you can’t ever be rich enough.
Someone needs to tell Pope Donald, you can’t take it with you.
Everybody dies, including you.
The rest of us will be left to pick up the few remaining pieces. Believe me, Russia and China never thought in their wildest dreams that we would gut the CIA and FBI and other intelligence agencies. This time Trump is way worse than just a useful idiot.
As Bill Crider so often said, we’re doomed, doomed.
Jeff, the sycophants around Trump are working on the Russian Oligarchs Model that Bernie Sanders has been warning us about for years. Rich people can never have enough money…or yachts…or mansions.
Yet the crystalization of Drumpf, when he’s not bother a woman in some way or another, is his ludicrous insistence that the Photoshop letters and numerals on a photo of a tattoo his most famous death-prison victim had were actually on his knuckles…
as reported on THE DAILY SHOW: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1184315209546200
Ha, that’s what I get for attempting to type while on hold between folks at my doctor’s office.
Todd, too many people are NOT paying attention to what Trump is doing.
What a load of bushwa!
Bob, the money doesn’t lie. And money is the fuel for all political activities. Both the Democrats and Republicans are operating in a broken system.
I really have to wonder how much it takes for intelligent Drumpf supporters to finally say That’s More Than Enough.
Reading this, including the comments, and watching the news about the USA’s relations to Europe and the whole world I feel so glad that I managed to visit the USA from 1983 to 2011 so often.
I just calculated that on my almost 20 visits I spent half a year there!
Wouldn’t want to travel right now – but luckyly I’m too old anyway.
Btw this movement to the “Christian” (I prefer to call it fascist) right is happening all over the world right now, in many/most European countries eg.
To find that a fascist (officially extreme right) party like the German AfD, the Austrian FPÖ etc (don’t know the name of the Italian, French, British fascists) are almost the strongest force in these countries makes me shudder.
One of the few positive poin ts at least in Germanyis that religion is losing followers, almost half a million people every year stop paying the “Church Tax”.
Indeed, my sister is shopping for a European country to move to…I simply counseled “Choose wisely”…
And here’s Charlie Sykes, now an ex-Republican who’s joined the Libertarian Party, having some pointed fun: https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/donald-trump-our-neo-marxist-president