American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges

Author:Chris Hedges
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fascism - United States, Political Ideologies, Political Freedom & Security, Politics & State, Fascism, Religious Aspects, Fascism & Totalitarianism, Government, Christianity, United States, Religion, Conservatism & Liberalism, Conservatism, Political Science, Denominations, Fundamentalism - United States, Fundamentalism, General, Conservatism - Religious Aspects - Christianity, History
ISBN: 9780099499220
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2006-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The New Class

To tell men that they are equal has a certain sentimental appeal. But this appeal is small compared with that made by a propaganda that tells them they are superior to others, and that others are inferior to them.

—Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 11

The elevator at the Hilton Hotel in Anaheim, California, fills floor by floor, as it descends with delegates for the National Religious Broadcasters annual convention. There is a slightly forced camaraderie and an awkward cheerfulness as we head down to the lobby. People glance quickly at the plastic name tags on one another’s chests. They smile as new passengers step inside and say good morning. They sprinkle the words of the converted into their banter, talking about how “blessed” they are to be here, beginning brief dialogues with phrases such as “Where is your ministry?” and ending them with “Praise the Lord.” This call-and-response is a form of initiation, an easy way to draw the lines between themselves and nonbelievers, to establish the parameters of their exclusive community. All subcultures have their linguistic codes of identification. This new class is no exception.

The convention has brought together some 5,500 Christian broadcasters from radio and television, who reach, according to their figures, an estimated 141 million listeners and viewers across America. And they see themselves as both the persecuted and the powerful. These twin themes run through the event. They are both threatened by conspiratorial forces that seek to destroy them and empowered by the certainty of Christ’s return. These emotions bond them together as a crowd, as comrades in the battle against the godless.

Southern California, along with Colorado Springs, is one of the epicenters of the radical movement. Numerous television evangelists, including the disgraced Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker, got their start in these huge, soulless exurbs. These large developed tracts of housing are isolated, devoid of neighborhood gathering places, community rituals and routines, even of sidewalks. The isolation, coupled with the long, lonely commutes in a car; the cold, impersonal world of the corporate office; and the banal, incessant chatter of talk radio and television create numbness and disorientation. This destruction of community is one of the crucial factors that has led to the rise of the Christian Right. The megachurches, which have prospered in these environments, have become surrogate communities, places where people can find clubs to pursue common interests, friends, a sense of belonging, and moral direction. In these sprawling churches, which often look like shopping or convention centers, believers are reassured, told that affluence is blessed by God—a sign of their righteousness and the righteousness of their nation—and that in the embrace of the church they have a place, a home.

There is a Starbucks in the Hilton Hotel lobby. Dee Simmons from Dallas is waiting to order a coffee. Around her neck she is wearing a gold cross studded with diamonds, and on her face, smooth and unwrinkled, makeup is artfully applied. The line of men and women, in front and behind us, is conservatively dressed in skirts or coats and ties.

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