Kevin Phillips' "Emerging Republican Majority" now "American Theocracy"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Books of The Times | 'American Theocracy'
Tying Religion and Politics to an Impending U.S. Decline
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: March 17, 2006


Kevin Phillips, a former Republican strategist who helped design that party's Southern strategy, made his name with his 1969 book, "The Emerging Republican Majority," which predicted the coming ascendancy of the G.O.P. In the decades since, Mr. Phillips has become a populist social critic, and his last two major books — "Wealth and Democracy" (2002) and "American Dynasty" (2004) — were furious jeremiads against the financial excesses of the 1990's and what he portrayed as the Bush family's "blatant business cronyism," with ties to big oil, big corporations and the military-industrial complex.

His latest book, "American Theocracy," the concluding volume of this "trilogy of indictments," ranges far beyond the subject suggested by its title — an examination of the religious right and its influence on the current administration — to anatomize a host of economic, political, military and social developments that Mr. Phillips sees as troubling indices of the United States' coming decline....Mr. Phillips draws a lot of detailed analogies in these pages, using demographics, economic statistics and broader cultural trends to map macropatterns throughout history. In analyzing the fates of Rome, Hapsburg Spain, the Dutch Republic, Britain and the United States, he comes up with five symptoms of "a power already at its peak and starting to decline": 1) "widespread public concern over cultural and economic decay," along with social polarization and a widening gap between rich and poor; 2) "growing religious fervor" manifested in a close state-church relationship and escalating missionary zeal; 3) "a rising commitment to faith as opposed to reason and a corollary downplaying of science"; 4) "considerable popular anticipation of a millennial time frame" and 5) "hubris-driven national strategic and military overreach" in pursuit of "abstract international missions that the nation can no longer afford, economically or politically." Added to these symptoms, he writes, is a sixth one, almost too obvious to state: high debt, which can become "crippling in its own right."...

***

As Mr. Phillips sees it, "the Southernization of American governance and religion" is "abetting far-reaching ideological change and eroding the separation of powers between church and state," while moving the Republican party toward "a new incarnation as an ecumenical religious party, claiming loyalties from hard-shell Baptists and Mormons, as well as Eastern Rite Catholics and Hasidic Jews," who all define themselves against the common enemy of secular liberalism.

The interpenetration of religion and politics, Mr. Phillips argues, not only poses a threat to democratic principles, but may also affect the course of history, as various precedents suggest: "Militant Catholicism helped undo the Roman and Spanish empires; the Calvinist fundamentalism of the Dutch Reformed Church helped to block any 18th-century Dutch renewal; and the interplay of imperialism and evangelicalism led pre-1914 Britain into a bloodbath and global decline."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/books/17book.html?_r=1&oref=login

[swag]

1. Goodness me. What a read.

Excellent post.

[BootinUp]

2. I would like to read that one. Sounds prophetic.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Indeed. It's almost as if the South had won the Civil War...

but went forward with the resources of the North. When talking about the South, I always point out that I grew up in the South, and know well the numbers of people there who are not in any way the kind of people who are part of the dynamic Philips is writing about.

[KT2000]

3. OK - Kevin Phillips

helped design the Southern Strategy. Now he is decrying the southerization of American governance.

Do these people see how they helped cause what they are objecting too?

[DeepModem Mom]

4. It would be interesting to talk to Philips about that question.

With his books, he's, at least, trying to wake people up about the Bushes, and what his majority has become.

[PA Democrat]

5. I suspect Mr. Phillips deeply regrets his past actions to help the GOP.

I have read his 2 more recent books and he impresses me as someone who loves his country enough to admit he was wrong. He is no longer a Republican BTW, and is registered as an independent.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thanks for this info, PD -- I didn't know he was no longer...

a registered Republican.

[PA Democrat]

8. I heard him in an interview say this

Also reported in this interesting Washington Post article on Mr. Phillips:

As you might expect, Phillips's salvos, and his essays for such liberal magazines as the Nation and the American Prospect, don't amuse conservative Republicans. They talk and write of this former Republican theorist -- now a registered independent -- as a nephew might of a favorite uncle grown dyspeptic and perhaps daft.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42831-2004Aug28

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Great article!

"Phillips's bottom line is unsparing. He describes the Bushes as second-tier New England monied types who made the strategic move from Greenwich, Conn., to Midland, Tex., just as the nation's power pendulum took a southern swing. This was not a particularly daring strike into the interior. Rather, like proper Wall Street capitalists, the Bushes and many other financier families had sniffed the scent of sweet cash and sent a relative or two to investigate."

Maybe the Bushes' being second tier in New England, which, actually, they were, has made them insecure enough not to develop the social conscience many old-line rich families develop.

"What bothers him is that generation after generation of Bushes are so unwilling to transcend their class interests.

'An old buccaneer and bootlegger like Joe Kennedy became an SEC head for Roosevelt and cracked down on his own class,' Phillips says, adding: 'The Bush family would just appoint a Gucci-shoe-licking sycophant. The family has simply developed a culture of being enormously supportive of their class.'"

[KoKo]

11. Philips long ago turned on his own Party when he saw the direction

it was heading. He's written some incredible books. The last one in dept explored the Bush Crime family back to their Nazi financial support and before that their money off making guns that won the West..

[MadHound]

9. Good news, Phillips is an excellent and prophetic writer

He was an old school Republican who became fed up with both where his party was heading and where the country is heading. His "indictment" books are good, though a bit scary reads. His other more historical books, such as "The Cousins Wars" are wonderful historical analysies that are thoughtful and well written.

Going to have to go pick this one up ASAP.

[myrna minx]

10. I think this book will be quite illuminating.

While I must admit that I'm a bit burned out on political books, I think this will be a must read. I'm interested in reading about the evolution of this borg entity. Hopefully it will provide tools for our own strategy.

[Roland99]

13. Cool. I *just* started reading American Dynasty last night.