Republican Raptures

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted April 11, 2006.

Author Kevin Phillips discusses the growing power that the Christian Right has over the Republican Party.

Ever since former Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips published the bestselling "The Emerging Republican Majority" in 1969, the announcement that he's written a new book has typically been first met by political observers and the press with a kind of hushed awe, and then a mad rush to read it. Phillips' books tend to give comprehensive overviews of politics at the national level, and macro social phenomena that shape our national interest. His latest book -- his 11th -- is no different.

In "American Theocracy" (Viking), Phillips examines three crises affecting the country: The dangers that growing instability and shortages in global oil markets pose for our petro-dependent society; the threat that our massive debts and deficits may collapse the dollar and the American economy; and the growing power that the Christian Right has over the Republican Party.