Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States

Rating:
Summary: Great information, needs better sociological framework
Review: Diamond's book contains a great wealth of information about right wing movements and any one interested in the history of anti-communism, conservative Christianity or other related movements should read it. Even a casual glance at the book reveals the enormous amount of time and effort that went into the book.

In this review, I'll focus on more sociological issues. First, I see this book as a contribution to the sociology of social movements. One of the strengths of the book is that it shows the importance of mobilization and organization building, a theme
emphasized in recent social movements research.

However, one thing I found interesting is that the book doesn't draw much from the "social movement cycle" literature, which argues that movements reach a peak and then decline. Diamond depicts a set of movements that looks like they are on the road to world domination.

Since the publication of the book, we have a little more perspective on right wing movements. They did gain an enormous amount of power, but there were limits and the movements are now in decline. Consider these simple facts: no GOP presidenial candidate has beat 50% of the vote since Bush '88, the Senate has slid back into the Democrat column and the House will probably revert to the Dems. Tonight, conservative
gubernatorial candidates in Jersey and Virginia have gone down in defeat. Prayer has not been re-instituted in all American
public schools, creationism is still taught in few places and
women still have the right to choose.

We have not encountered a theocratic
pusch. What can be said is that right wing movements have
done very well considering that they are in the numerical
minority and that liberal politics dominated up until the
mid-1970's. They did so using organizational techniques
now copied by all sorts of movements (like PACS, mail lists,
etc.), a point hammered home by Diamond's book.

Another criticism of the book is that it too easily adopts the
left/right dichotomy. Should one really classify conservative
Christians with atheistic pro-capitalist Ayn Rand cyberlibertarians?

One lesson that we've learned from political sociology is that
left/right distinctions can really mask deep differences. For
example, it would be folly to lump together Green movements,
labor movements and student movements. Diamond does discuss
differences in right wing movements in detail, but insists on
retaining the "right/left" framework, much to my dismay. I really wish that she had reshaped the rhetoric of the book to fit the data that she produced.

Maybe instead of "right wing," she should work out a general sociological theory that would predict why Ayn Rand libertarians are frequently to be found with conservative christians. It is suggested at some points that christians are manipulated by big business, which is the "masses are duped by the oppressor" theory of social movements. I've never bought this theory.

The real intellectual challenge is to explore how the cognitive
framework of these movements allowed for such divergent groups
to cooperate, and "they're the pawns of big business" seems a
cop out. Maybe a network analysis will do the job, or
a David Snow style framing argument. Maybe everything does
boil down to "big business" rules the world, but there needs
to be some more testing of different theories. I feel that the level of detail allows the evasion of theory building

and hypothesis testing.

Diamond has the data and talent for this kind of
project, but can she move away from the activist audience,
which demands accusation, to a scientific audience, which demands
clear hypotheses and tests against data?

To summarize: great data, fantastically detailed research,
could use a better or more subtle sociological framework.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good review of the right wing in America
Review: For those who want a fresh review of the right wing movement in America over the past few decades, this one is a sure winner.

Yet, one aspect which I believe the author failed to mention is the important link behind 'big money' and the religious right, which, in effect, has served as a 'pawn of the oppressor' in regards to economic issues. The religious right provides the Republican party with its only source of an alliance with lower-income and working-class voters. White Protestant Fundamentlists are the only group of persons who vote Republican a majority of the time. Why? Because the religious right - funded by the pro-corporate Republican party and other big business interests - shooves divisive issues - such as civil rights, church/state separation and abortion - into their face so that 'bread and butter' economic issues like Social Security, health care, education and day care can be ignored. The very Republican Congressman who votes pro-life and against civil rights(to the delight of the brainwashed religious right electorate)will vote against their economic interests by supporting such conservative pro-affluent class measures as the flat tax, privatized Social Security and privatized Medicare. Does not anyone else see a connection? The religious right is a pawn of the oppressor in that it is just another stealth organization funded by corporate American which puts divisive issues in front of the faces of conservative families in order to distract them from other important issues - such as health care reform, fair taxation and labor laws. Do lower income and working class religious right families benefit from Republican politics? Of course not. No family benefits from a party which denies them health care, a fair tax system, public education and job training and instead gives them scraps under the table, in the form of abortion regulation and gay and minority bashing. As a Christian who believes in social justices for the oppressed, I find this very, very disturbing. Christ was pro-poor and pro-minority. He would never bash minorities or scapegoat persons like the religious right does. He would surely oppose efforts to give the wealthy in the form of tax breaks and take away from the poor in the form of privatization of cherrished government programs.

This is the central point which the author missed: The tie between big money and the religious right, as well as the outcry which should have been heard from any 'Christian' organization which in 1995 the Republicans tried to decimate Medicare, Medicaid, Education, Welfare and Nutrition programs for the at-risk while giving the affluent huge tax breaks. No Christ-like organization would support such moves.

That is the main point which the author missed. Other than that, it is a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Scary stuff!
Review: If you think that rational, reasonable Americans can't be subjected to a theocratic putsch, you have another thing coming. Diamond is an expert at infiltrating radical fringe religious groups and getting the inside skinny on their plans and objectives. The objective is domination of the United States under the smiling face of Jesus, regardless of the richly diverse religious makeup of the country. There are those out there who would force you to follow their rules and their morality, because they believe they have all the answers. Diamond's research shows us how they might, and are indeed trying, to do exactly that. The ties are strong and many and lie just below the surface of the public consciousness. If nothing else, it will make you wonder what a given politician REALLY has on his mind when he names Jesus as his favorite philosopher.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't understand the community about which she writes
Review: Sara Diamond is somewhat more responsible and restrained than other Leftist writers, like Chip Berlet and Skipp Porteous, who think that conservative Christianity poses a threat to democratic traditions in America. But in the end, Diamond falls victim (or willingly perpetuates) the same lie: that mainstream evangelical Christians are evil and part of a plot to abolish democracy because they tend to vote Republican.

To reach these conclusions, Diamond (as well as the other aforementioned Mother Jones contributors) dwells on the fringe of American religion (Christian Reconstructionists, independent fundamentalists, Kingdom Now charismatics). All told, these groups probably don't even add up to 1 million people - small change in a country as big as America - and the bulk of them (independent fundamentalists) are relatively apolitical, however authoritarian and anti-intellectual they are within their own communities. These groups and their agendas cannot be extrapolated to mainstream Evangelicalism, the 20-30 million Christians represented by the National Association of Evangelicals and similar denominational entities.