American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century Book

This is the third book I've read by one-time Republican wunderkind Kevin Phillips. Not a bad entry at all. Here, we have one of the architects of Nixon's Southern Strategy bemoaning the Frankenstein monster that he helped create with the ascendence of the Christian Right. There is a lot of value in this book, but I certainly don't agree with the author 100%.

Phillips correctly identifies three of the main power centers of the modern GOP: Finance, Oil, and churchgoing Christians. In terms of realpolitik Phillips is on target when he points to the vast influence exercised by the oil industry and the FIRE sector, especially during the Bush-era (when this book was written). However, I take issue with his over-exaggeration of the influence of conservative Christians. It is beyond question that this voter base is hugely important to the Republican Party, but the behavior of the second Bush Administration causes a great deal of hand-wringing by Phillips over worries that Christian theocrats were taking a larger hand in guiding American policy. This is way overblown. The tail does not wag the dog, as Phillips seems to be arguing here. Christians are an important power base but don't come anywhere near to directing policy choices like the other examples in this book - oil and finance.

This was the main weakness and my chief complaint about this book. It's understandable considering the point in time when it was written in the mid 2000s. But I think Chris Hedges comes much closer to the real source of worry in his book American Fascists. The real problem, in my opinion, is the way right-wing politics is trying to mold American Christians into a pro-capitalist army that will mindlessly support the objectives of American business, not that American Christians will somehow strong-arm American policies in a more theocratic direction. Phillips wasted a lot of time cataloging the rise and fall of different Christian denominations in American history to no real end. I wish he would have concentrated more on the interplay between American Christians and American business.

The sections on oil and finance were much stronger and propelled this from a three-star to a four-star review. The oil section was chockablock with fascinating details about the anxieties in the oil industry about peak oil throughout the 1990s. There was a lot of fresh material here (to me) about why the Bush Administration would have been gunning for Iraq long before 9-11 for reasons that had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or the War on Terror. This makes for a very strong anti-war argument coming from a very unexpected place.

The section on finance was fascinating for its historical emphasis on past empires in Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain. Phillips spins some really startling parallels between the rise and fall of those empires and where the US sits on our own empire timeline - especially where finance is concerned. He also draws parallels with past empires' religious fervor that I think were interesting but mostly academic. Still, telescoping through history in this way was my favorite part of the book. His warnings in this section also proved quite prophetic once the economic crisis of 2008 finally emerged. Here is an author writing in 2005-2006 talking about Collateralized Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps before any of the rest of us really knew what was coming. Nice!