On this edition of Your Call’s Authoritarian Playbook series, Katherine Stewart discusses her book, Money, Lies, and God: Inside The Movement to Destroy American Democracy.
She argues that the moral collapse of conservatism has enabled the rise of authoritarianism under Trump. She also exposes the networks of dark money-funded and ultra right-wing actors in our political system.
Katherine Stewart writes: "Even at this late date, I continue to hear feel-good suggestions that the political conflicts of the moment are the result of incivility, tribalism, ‘affective partisanship,’ or some other unfortunate trend in manners that affects every side of the political debates equally. All will be well, the thinking goes, if the red people and the blue people would just sit down for some talk therapy and give a little to the other side. In earlier times this may have been sage advice. Today it is a delusion. American democracy is failing because it is under direct attack, and the attack is not coming equally from both sides."
What will it take to turn things around and restore democracy for all?
Guest:
Katherine Stewart, journalist covering the rise of the anti-democratic movement, and author of numerous books including The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism and Money, Lies, and God: Inside The Movement to Destroy American Democracy
Resources:
The New Republic: Conservative Media’s Big Advantage: Money, Money, Money
The New Yorker: Pete Hegseth’s Holy War
The Guardian: US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan,’ watchdog alleges
