Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party

by Max Blumenthal

Overview

Over the last year, award-winning journalist and videographer Max Blumenthal has been behind some of the most sensational (and funniest) exposes of Republican machinations. Whether it was his revelation that Sarah Palin was "anointed" by a Kenyan priest famous for casting out witches, or his confronting Republican congressional leaders and John McCain's family at the GOP convention about the party's opposition to sex education (and hence, the rise in teen pregnancies like that of Palin's daughter), or his expose of the eccentric multimillionaire theocrat behind California's Prop 8 anti- gay marriage initiative, Blumenthal has become one of the most important and most constantly cited journalists on how fringe movements are becoming the Republican Party mainstream.

Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidness from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans-like John McCain-have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement's leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786750443
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Max Blumenthal is the author of Republican Gomorrah, a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller, and Goliath, winner of the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book Award. His writing and video documentaries have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast, the Nation, the Guardian, the Independent Film Channel, the Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English, and many other publications. He blogs at maxblumenthal.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Escape from Freedom 1

Part 1

Chapter 1 God's Government 17

Chapter 2 Creating a Monster 23

Chapter 3 What God Wants Him to Do 32

Chapter 4 Marching Through the Institutions 38

Chapter 5 The Personal Crisis Industry 47

Chapter 6 The King of Pain 54

Part 2

Chapter 7 Satan in a Porsche 67

Chapter 8 The Killer and the Saint 73

Chapter 9 A Dangerous Woman 78

Chapter 10 Cheap Grace 84

Chapter 11 The Addict and the Enabler 97

Chapter 12 Casino Jack, the Face Painter, and the Sausage King 103

Chapter 13 Talk to Her 114

Chapter 14 The Bad Cop 125

Chapter 15 Boldly Affirming Uncle Tom 137

Chapter 16 Feeding Baby Monsters 153

Chapter 17 Human Tools 167

Chapter 18 The Conformists 183

Chapter 19 Lives Unlived 196

Chapter 20 The Wide Stance 209

Chapter 21 Pastor Ted's Excellent Adventure 218

Chapter 22 Ultimate Fighting Jesus v. Betty Jo "B. J." Blowers 223

Chapter 23 The Nightmare of Christianity 238

Part 3

Chapter 24 The Party of Dobson 253

Chapter 25 The Party of Death 267

Chapter 26 The Hate Boat 274

Chapter 27 A Matter of Tone 281

Chapter 28 The Family That Prays Together 287

Epilogue: The Anointing 313

Postscript: The Days of Rage 317

Acknowledgments 337

Notes 339

Index 403

Editorial Reviews

Journalist Blumenthal documents the movement of conservative evangelicals from the political wings to center stage, delving into the psyches of those who now lead a Republican Party "fixated on abortion, homosexuality and abstinence education; resentful and angry." Guided by Eric Hoffer's 1951 cult classic The True Believer ("Faith in a holy cause, is to some extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves,") and Eric Fromm's 1941 psychoanalytical study of the Nazi movement (Escape from Freedom), Blumnthal suggests that childhood abuse has shaped the personalities of key leaders, including Focus on the Family guru James Dobson. Blumenthal is at his best examining these characters up close, including presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich and his born-again conversion; John Hagee, a Pentecostal pastor who lauded Hitler for "forcing the Jews to Israel"; Sarah Palin, whose political aspirations first came to her as part of a religious conversion; and evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, a self-proclaimed spiritual warrior caught in a relationship with a male prostitute. For those who enjoyed Jeff Sharlet's Capitol Hill exposé The Family, this makes a spicy follow-up.
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Publishers Weekly

"With scarcely more than a pith helmet, a notebook, and a tattered copy of Escape from Freedom, Erich Fromm’s great study of authoritarian psychology, the dauntless Max Blumenthal set forth years ago to explore the dank forests of American Christianism. Now he has returned to civilization, bringing back a fine collection of shrunken heads and a riveting account of a religio-political subculture that’s even weirder than you thought it was. Republican Gomorrah is an irresistable combination of anthropology and psychopathology that exerts the queasy fascination of (let’s face it) something very like pornography."

—Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker

“A brave and resourceful reporter adept at turning over rocks that public-relations-savvy Christian conservative leaders would prefer remain undisturbed.”
—Rick Perlstein,

From the Publisher