Chris Hedges' (author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning) new paperback edition of American Fascists includes a question and answer with the author in which Hedges discusses the loaded term "fascists" and its application to the American religious political movement. Hedges admits that the term is loaded, but argues that it is appropriate:
..."fascism" or "fascist" is a terribly loaded word, and it evokes a historical period, primarily that of the Nazis and to a lesser extent Mussolini. But fasism as an ideology has generic qualities. People like Robert O. Paxton in The Anatomy of Fascism have tried to quantify them. Umberto Eco did it in Five Moral Pieces, and I actually begin the book with an excerpt from Eco. I think there are enough generic qualities that the group within the religious right, known as Christian Reconstructionists or dominionists, warrants the word. Does this mean that this is Nazi Germany? No. Does this mean that this is Mussolinin's Italy? No. Does this mean that this is a deeply anti-democratic movement that would like to impose a totalitarian system? Yes.
Hedge's book then, examines this premise, and examines the Christian right as a fascist movement. Hedges' book is rich in detail, and provides a compelling inside look at the religious right.
The book is organized around the features of fascism, too many to list and discuss here, but a few of them require attention.
Hedges' first chapter deals with faith, and in it Hedges illustrates the meaning of faith within the Reconstructionist or dominionist movement. It is of course marked by a literalist reading of the bible and a belief in the authority of the church over all aspects of life, including political. Hedges says dominionists seek the power of the state and to subject it to biblical authority:
Dominionism, born out of a theology known as Christian reconstructionism, seeks to politicize faith. It has, like all fascist movements, a belief in magic along with leadership adoration and a strident call for moral and physical supremeacy of a master race, in this case American Christians. It als has, like fascist movements, an ill-defined and shifting set of beliefs, some of which contradict one another. Paxton argues that the best way to understand authentic fascist movements, which he says exist in all societies, including democracies, is to focus no on what they say but on how they act, for as he writes, some of the ideas that underlied fascist movements "remain unstated and implicit in fascist public language..."
Hedges goes on to explain that the dominionists have a core set of sometimes unspoken goals or beliefs, such as the death penalty for a wide variety of offenses, a world "subdued by a Christian United States," an antipathy for any role for government other than for national security, and the supremacy of biblical law. Furthermore, like traditional fundamentalism, Hedges argues, the dominionists practice an obedience to the specifically male authority of the church, and an intolerance of nonbelievers, but that dominionists go further in attempting to take over the mechanisms of state power and make them an extension of the church. Additionally, as biblical literalists, they believe in a literal interpretation of the creation myth of Genesis, and object to scientific understanding of geology and evolutionary biology.
Another significant element of the dominionist movement described by Hedges is the "cult of masculinity," or what Hedges describes as a "hypermasculinity" that is imposed on the church body. Hedges explains that male authority is supreme in the movement, and that leaders feel threatened by homosexuality or any kind of femininity within the leadership of the church. "The goal of the movement is theocracy," he quotes a former female church member as saying, "but they must dominate women to keep the system in place." At the same time, the movement attempts to create obedient children who will not question the church authority.
These children are condidtioned to rely on external authority for moral choice. They obey out of fear and often repeat this pattern of fearful obedience as adults. Rebusal to submit to authority is heresy. Raised in a home and a school where he or she is tuaght to see the world as one where the possibility of attack and danger lurks behind every crevice, the child learns to distrust outsiders. The benign and trivial take on satanic proposrtions...the pathology of fear, ingrained in the child, plays itself out in the constant search for phantom enemies who seek the destruction of the adult believer.
Another example of the cult of masculinity and how it informs concepts of family and authority:
Nicolosi warns against fathers who are "weak and unmasculine, and perhaps beaten down by the mother." He says that boys need a strong, masculine father who is worthy of imitation, of modeling, owrthy of disconnecting from the mother." He also cautions against an "overemotionally involved mother" who is a "dominant, strong personality."
In addition to a hypermasculinity, fascism indulges in a hyperpatriotism as well, a nationalism that is chauvinistic and often racist. It makes sense then, that the dominionist movement finds a natural ally in anti-immigration forces. In fact, reading Hedges' book helps make clear the strong antipathy for McCain among evangelical Christians. He isn't one of them, isn't sufficiently intolerant, hasn't had a background with the most extreme leaders of the right wing movement. It's also easy to understand the coded attacks that are currently being directed at Barack Obama. In accusing him of refusing to say the pledge of allegiance, accusing him of being Muslim, accusing him of being African and thus not American, the religious right is engaging in coded attacks to label him as the enemy of all that they stand for, an enemy in the unification of the church and state in a theocratic society.
In a summary of this kind, the movement Hedges is describing sounds familiar enough to most readers. However, what gives Hedges' book greater depth and meaning is the wealth of examples of speeches and writings of the leadership of the movement, and the testimony of some who have left it. In particular, Hedges describes the actions of Ken Blackwell in 2004 in terms of his loyalty to the dominionist cause, and describes his connections to many in the movement. He also gives a chilling account of Columbus Ohio pastor Rod Parsley, head of the World Harvest Church:
Often, as he did at a rally at Columbus with former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Parsley orders the secular media to leave. He was instrumental in mobilizing voters to support the gay marriage ban during the 2004 presidential elections in Ohio, an effective tool in getting the religious right to the polls to vote for President Bush.
He also quotes Parsley as saying: "I just love to talk about money... I just love to talk about your money. Let me be very clear--I want your money. I deserve it. The church deserves it."
American Fascists is a terrific reference manual for understanding the religious right in America, the sources of their ideas, their leaders, their lines of argument. It is an indispensable book.
