American Fascists

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning Chris Hedges challenges the Christian Right’s religious legitimacy and argues that, at its core, it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life.

In American Fascists, Chris Hedges—who grew up steeped in Bible and Christian tradition in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian—points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have received assistance from the most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. He argues that the movement’s call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement’s yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

Drawing from interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, Hedges examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations, and its dark ideological underpinnings. He issues a potent, timely, impassioned warning: we face an imminent threat. American Fascists reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.