Book Spotlight: American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips
Nathan Bupp
Former Republican strategist and aide to Richard Nixon Kevin Phillips has just authored the alarming and informative new book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. This is an important book for secular humanists. Phillips details, with devastating precision, what he calls a major transformation of the Republican party into a party of theocratic mainstays. Phillips’ dismay is especially poignant, coming from the man who had authored The Emerging Republican Majority in 1969. Indeed, Phillips dedicates his new book to those "millions of Republicans, present and lapsed, who have opposed the Bush dynasty and the disenlightenment in the 2000 and 2004 elections."
Phillips says that this new version of the GOP is "inept . . . dominated by religious zealotry, losing America the world’s respect—and endangering the future." Phillips documents some arresting statistics—saying that under the direction of the current administration, we have come as close as ever before to a full-blown theocracy. That’s a strong statement, but consider the following: with the exception of religious African Americans, religious Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews all tend to vote Republican; the role of religion in America—post-9-11—has intensified, setting up a battle between "good and evil"; there is a strong correlation between church attendance and voting Republican; we have a Republican rank and file with strong theocratic tendencies, and a president who believes God chose him to lead; and 50 to 55 percent of the Republican electorate believe in Armageddon and that the Anti-Christ is alive and walking. All this is cogently elucidated by Phillips, and it’s all enough to make one run to the Canadian border. (Actually, Canada is beginning to face threats from its own religious right as well.) As if this isn’t enough, Phillips also documents what he sees as an "insidious alignment of the financial sector in America, and the religious right."
All reasons to go out and buy Phillips book. It may not brighten your day, but at least you will be cognizant of just what has happened to democracy in America under the firm thumbprint of the Bush agenda.
* American Theocracy reviewed in The New York Times.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0320-31.htm * Phillips interviewed on NPR.
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