These days, money matters a great deal in most worldly matters. Lies and deception are treated as honorable acts because the people involved are very wealthy and powerful. Money is a major part of what’s happening. The author Katherine Stewart writes, “very wealthy people who are investing in this movement as a means to get their ends.”
Four chapters deal with “Money”, three with “Lies”, and four with “God”.
Stewart analyzes that extreme wealth and income inequality over the past five decades has led to a combination of economic pain and cultural grievance, giving rise to a loosely organized, yet concerted and generously funded political movement, peopled by an uneasy mix of bedfellows, that propelled Donald Trump back to the White House. This movement, cleverly knit and relying on Money, Lies, and God, continuously provokes and exploits the country’s racial and ethnic divisions.
Fundamentally, it rejects the American idea but holds that the country should be dedicated to “a particular religion and culture” under which “certain kinds of Americans (white, male, Christians and conservative) have “a right to rule” and the rest “a duty to obey.’” Its pastoral leaders call for female subordination to male “headship.”
Stewart argues that this movement is an elaborate con in which power elites pretend to share common ground, while the Funders and the Thinkers seek self-centered gains.
She describes “reactionary nihilism” as a long-term, well-organized effort to dismantle American democracy and replace it with a theocratic, white Christian nationalist order. This movement rejects pluralism, rational debate, and the rule of law, while embracing violence and bigotry as tools of control. Her theory is that the revolt of the right was deeply rooted in societal changes, including economic dislocation, dating back half a century.
The author argues that the movement described in her book “wants to burn down the house.” Among the major contributors to MAGA and other far-right elements have been the leaders and foot soldiers of “a radically new, intensely politicized religion centered on a newly concocted ‘pro-life’ theory and—among a large number—the idea of spiritual warfare.”
From the Book
“The big story of our time is the rise of an antidemocratic political movement in the United States. Like any such movement, this one is diverse and complicated. It brings together a collection of people and ideas that in ordinary circumstances would not dream of sharing a bed. …and it represents the most serious threat to American democracy since the Civil War. It is best described as a new and distinctly American variant of authoritarianism or fascism.”
“This movement has captured one of the nation’s two major political parties, and some of its leading thinkers explicitly model their ambitions on corrupt and illiberal regimes abroad that render education, the media, and the corporate sector subservient to a one-party authoritarian state.”
“Each gains power by deceiving the others. Inevitably, they attempt to deceive the rest of us, too, and then they begin to deceive themselves.”
“New Right comprises a highbrow gathering of right-wing academics, writers, and think tankers who, for the last several years, have argued that the old Reaganite coalition uniting religious conservatives, anti-Communists, and free-market libertarians is over, and some new shared vision must take its place.”
“One of the clearest warnings in the entire book is that the wall that once stood as a reasonable barrier between church and state is rickety and falling to pieces, and it isn’t in this condition by accident.”
“The movement does draw on a range of different actors – many of whom, by the way, have incompatible goals. So, I titled the book Money, Lies, and God, because … huge concentrations of wealth at the very tippy top of the economic ladder have destabilized the political system. Second, lies or conscious disinformation. That’s another huge feature of the movement. And third, ‘God’ in the title, because the most important ideological framework for the largest part of this movement is Christian Nationalism.”
