American Theocracy

If you look under my "Currently Reading" section of the sidebar you will see this book: American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips. I have been searching for a book like this for a little while now.

Over three decades of Bush presidencies, vice presidencies, and CIA directorships, the Republican party has slowly become the vehicle of...petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex...On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Lincoln's election in 1860. (pg x)

The American heartland...cherishes SUVs and easy carbon dioxide emissions policy, and applauds preemptive U.S. air strikes on uncooperative, terrorist-coddling Persian Gulf countries fortuitously blessed with huge reserves of oil. (pg xii)

Just who is Kevin Phillips? From his website: After Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 restored the 1968-72 dynamics, Phillips was generally acknowledged as the Republican party’s principal electoral theoretician. In 1982, the Wall Street Journal described him as “the leading conservative electoral analyst -- the man who invented the Sun Belt, named the New Right, and prophesied ‘The Emerging Republican Majority’ in 1969.” So reading his book will not give me a 'distorted view of Republican doctrine through rosy Liberal lenses' but was written from someone IN the 'Right.'

Within the church that I go to I have always found many U.S. members equated their beliefs with their strong country. That God helped the world but lived in the U.S. What I mean is that their patriotism was tightly mixed up in their head with their feelings for God and religion. An attack on their GOP (if Republican) was an attack on their beliefs, was from the Devil, was a sign of spiritual immaturity. This book deals with some of these issues and others. I can't wait to see what I can learn from his research and analysis.