If you haven't read Max Blumenthal's latest book "Republican Gomorrah", you should. Some of what you'll read isn't news to anyone who's read dengre's diaries, but Blumenthal adds background to dengre's work. You'll read names like R. J. Rushdoony and Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. Rushdoony is behind some of the ideals while Ahmanson provides the cash.
Over the flip I'll provide you with a few excerpts of others reviews.
First up, one by Frank Schaeffer, author of "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back."
Republican Gomorrah is the first book that actually "gets" what's happened to the Republican Party and in turn what the Republicans have done to our country. The usual Democratic Party and/or progressive "take" on the Republican Party is that it's been taken over by a far right lunatic fringe of hate and hypocrisy, combining as it does, sexual and other scandals with moralistic finger wagging. But Blumenthal explains a far deeper pathology: it isn't so much religion as the psychosis and sadomasochism of the losers now called "Republicans" that drives the party. And the "Christianity" that shapes so much "conservative" thinking now is anything but Christian. It's a series of deranged personality cults.
The Religious Right/Republicans have perfected the method of capturing people in personal crisis and turning them into far right evangelical/far right foot soldiers. This explains a great deal that otherwise, to outsiders, seems almost inexplicable--the why and wherefore of "Deathers" "Birthers" et al. Blumenthal brilliantly sums up this pathology as:
"...a culture of personal crisis lurking behind the histrionics and expressions of social resentment. This culture is the mortar that bonds leaders and followers together."
Tracing the thinking of the fathers of the Republican Party, including my dad, the late Francis Schaeffer, who I teamed up with when I was a young man to help launch the Protestant wing of the "pro-life" movement, along with other such as Rousas John Rushdoony and the philanthropist Howard Ahmanson -- who used to donate generously to my far right work -- Blumenthal explains where the current Republican Party came from. He also details who it's foundational thinkers were, and just why it's still so dangerous. (A threat proved again this summer as the gun-toting fringe derailed the health care reform debate.)
He has their number. For one thing this book -- at last! -- will forever put James Dobson where he belongs: onto the top of the list of the American national rogue's gallery of mean-spirited, even sadistic, cranks.
(My emphasis)
Next up is a fellow named Robert Moore, Mr. Moore has posted 2229 reviews for Amazon and is a licensed Baptist Minister.
The demise of the GOP has over the course of the past 40 years occurred through two destructive influences: the Religious Right and libertarian economic philosophy. The latter has caused the GOP to embrace an unending string of crackpot economic theories. The former has caused the GOP to abandon its traditional conservatism to embrace fringe culture issues, leaving aside political issues to embrace moral and religious causes that really has nothing to do with government. Blumenthal focuses only on the role of the Religious Right in the destruction of the GOP. To a large degree it overlaps with a host of other excellent books on the Religious Right...
snip
...Hypocrisy and insanity riddles the political wing of the Religious Right today, and it has transported its problems to the GOP. Blumenthal distinguishes himself from the other writers that I mention by revealing the troubling depth of the moral crises in the leaders of the Religious right. An absolutely staggering number of movement leaders have had problems with attacking gays on the one hand while engaging in gay sexual affairs on the other. And a surprising number of Religious Right leaders evidence disturbing mental health problems, showing a tendency to sadomasochistic religion and an aggressive, nasty, mean-spirited approach to those not of their camp.
Blumenthal is rightfully upset by the destructive influence that the Religious Right. I have an additional reason to be upset. I am a Christian. I am, in fact, a licensed Southern Baptist minister, though I suppose that is actually no longer true since I left the SBC when it passed a proclamation at one of the national convention meetings that wives were to be submissive and obedient to their husbands. It was always a challenge to be a well educated and politically liberal individual while remaining a Southern Baptist, but that proclamation was so repulsive that I no longer wanted to be part of a tiny, but resistant minority within the convention. But I remain an unaligned Baptist and a deeply committed Christian...
There are others of course, some critical. Some critique Blumenthal for poor editing (I thought that was the editor's job). Some critique some bad sourcing (again, isn't that why you have an editor, to catch some of this). Hopefully, the second printing correct some of these editing errors. These errors shouldn't detract from the substance of the book.
On with the games!!
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