American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

This book was a best-seller back in its day, a warning about the goals of George W. Bush’s evangelical political base. The Radical Right that he describes has remained important, playing a key role in electing Donald Trump in 2016. Hedges’ warnings about the movement proved prescient as we observed an authoritarian movement try to exploit political office and even use its office to overturn a legitimate election to stay in power. He was prescient that the movement needed only an economic crisis, which occurred shortly after this book was published (2008-09), and a deeply cynical leader, which we elected in 2016. In this way, reading this book today reminds Americans that we should have been paying more attention all along.The Bush and Trump years produced many books making these points, most of which are far too strident and anti-Christian for my tastes. In contrast, Hedges regularly draws on his own faith – he holds an MDiv from Harvard – and he can empathize with parts of the movement. The early chapters review the growing despair in parts of American society, a hopeless that has only grown over the last 15 years. Hedges understands how people from dysfunctional families, recovering from addiction, and/or without good economic prospects are receptive to a message of hope and hatred. Evangelical missionaries use a marketing strategy of “love bombing” to bring converts into a tightly controlled community, offering them faith in a better future as well as a promise that their enemies will be destroyed. While he understands the appeal, Hedges also shows his anger at the ways that this movement has betrayed Christianity.The analytical apparatus in this book, as in much of journalism, is weak. Anecdotes too often serve as generalizations. As if to acknowledge his own lack of a definition, Hedges copies Umberto Eco’s multi-page characteristics of fascism and does not try to go beyond that. There is a wide literature on fascism among historians, political scientists, and sociologists, and I would have liked to see Hedges review a broader understanding of the topic. I would agree that the evangelical movement includes some fascists and even more fascist-like tactics, and it benefits from many non-fascist allies – as all revolutionary movements do.Unlike some other books in this genre, Hedges sees the diversity of American evangelicals and even the ideological differences among the extremists he warns about. He knows there are inclusive evangelical churches, Black evangelical churches, and liberal evangelical churches, but he does not examine how their appeal might serve as a brake on the radical Christian Right that he describes. As a result, Hedges tends to see greater unity than exists.Those who reject science, public education, and even the existence of alternative points of view want to create an indoctrinated population incapable of critical thought. Hedges argues that we cannot engage in dialogue with “America’s fascists” but only call them out and confront them.Those who find attractive the idea of destroying their enemies in order to build a “Christian America” might reflect on those periods in European history when similarly zealous leaders tried to build a religious dictatorship. If you can’t think of any, well, that is part of the problem.

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on AmericaDuring the tenure of George W Bush, after a group cycling effort, a conservative friend (I am liberal) asked me if I knew why we went to war in Iraq. I muttered something about muddled intelligence to which he replied, “no, your wrong.” He said we were in Iraq because of abortion. Incredulous, I asked how. He replied that Bush received the evangelical vote because he was pro-life rather than the Pro-choice of Gore. In that contested election, it was all that mattered.We have just had another contested election where the winner received the electoral vote majority, but not the popular, with the evangelical block and the forgotten remnants of much of middle America voting for the current occupant of the Oval Office. In Chris Hedges American Fascists The Christian Right and the War on America, he explains the mobilization of the evangelicals as a gigantic religious block. When one understands this book was published in 2006, it becomes rather frightening to see how far we have since slid.Hedges Ethics professor at Harvard, Dr James Luther Adams wrote, “Human history is not the struggle between religion and irreligion, it is veritably a battle of faiths, a battle of the gods who claim human allegiance. Almost 40 years ago, “Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion...who’s stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire.”There is appeal in this movement to the disavowed and forgotten in our society. There is a despair and loss of hope that leads those desperate in life into the embrace of those who promise miracles and glory. When there is nowhere else to turn, these desperate Americans are turning to the world of miracles and magic “mediated by those who grow rich off those who suffer.”Years ago, I accompanied a friend to the Willow Creek mega church in South Barrington, Illinois. It was my first, and next to last visit to what I refer to as industrialized religion. These mega churches are becoming more and more prevalent in our country, and Hedges documents the hypocrisy of their pastors and the message they emit. Hedges submits that the”business” of Trinity Broadcasting, and the partners who have become rich, such as the Paul and Jan Crouches, Pat Robertson, and Benny Hinns have grown wealthy, building extravagant “media and personal empires on the gospel of prosperity.” Young believers are indoctrinated to follow biblical rather than secular law.The Ohio pastor Rod Parsley lives in a 7500 square foot house worth more than $1,000,000. He collects millions by promoting a gospel of prosperity, and has written, “one of the first reasons for poverty is a lack of knowledge of God and His word, and the Bible says that to withhold the tithe (Parsley collects ten percent of the salaries from his flock, a majority who live modestly)is to rob God.” Parsley also sells covenant swords and prayer cloths which he claims, “will bring the buyer freedom from financial troubles as well as from physical or emotional ailments.”Hedges exposes the chicanery of those promoting religion and exploitation of those who follow them. Though the pages of American Fascists Hedges guides the reader through the wreckage of what was once good and compassionate about Christian religion and how those at the tiller, “this group of religious utopians, with the sympathy and support of tens of millions of Americans, are slowly dismantling democratic institutions to establish a religious tyranny, the springboard or an American fascism.” Using the 2008 Obama quote in its full context, “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” The religious right capitalizes not on the quote, but parasitizes the people who have fallen upon long hard times. Hedges documents this tragedy in a very readable book, that has foreshadowed our last presidential election.As an aside, though never very religious in the past, nor at all now, I wonder what the Jesus of whom I was taught, would have to say about the current leaders of the religious right, and the splendor in which they live, all the while exploiting those who have fallen upon hard times. “It is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (This quote is found in Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25.)

Democracy is something you either participate in, value and defend, or you will find one day that you don't have it anymore. This book provides a comprehensive description and insight into the organisations presently active in the determined attempts to obliterate the Democracy you take for granted.This is a war that the Christian Fundamentalists are hoping to win by stealth. In this war the application of knowledge is power and they are depending on your ignorance that their ultimate objective that one day you will wake up and find that you are in a totalitarian state governed under the rule of a book of magic.

An interesting analysis of the mutual interests of the religious right,big business and right wing politics in the US.It also examines the hidden anti-democratic agenda of the religious right as well as the alleged subterfuge used in attempting to realize its vision for setting up a christian theocracy in America and what it might mean for those who do not share its values.

Well worth a read. As relevant today as when it was written.

Thank dog religion is on the way out is all I can say. Frightening.

This book opened my eyes to the real danger that extremist religion poses to our democratic system. Chris Hedges is a talented experienced journalist, this book reflects his passion for democracy and his respect for rational thinking. The writing is tight and credible, the effort made to research is evident.I recommend it to people concerned with the way our treasured democratic institutions are being threatened.