"MAGA (Make America Great Again)," "Diversity is destruction!" "Make men men again."
In August 2023, the venue of the "ReAwaken America" event held in Las Vegas was filled with white men wearing hats and T-shirts bearing such slogans. A speaker who took the podium raised his voice, saying, "Satan's minions, including liberals, Democrats and communists, are trying to run this country." Throughout the conservative Christian event venue hung photos of Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential candidate, layered with images of eagles, crosses and Jesus.
Katherine Stewart, an investigative journalist, delves deep into how the U.S. far right's anti-democracy movement has been organized and expanded its influence in her new book "Money, Lies and God." The author has reported on the collusive relationship between U.S. conservative Christian groups and political circles for more than 15 years. The book's virtue is the dense, on-the-ground reporting produced by the author's legwork. She personally visited not only large-scale conservative rallies in the United States and Europe but also informal gatherings of activists and the sanctuaries of hardline churches, conveying the vivid voices of anti-democracy movement leaders and supporters.
The author does not vaguely lump together the agents of the U.S. anti-democracy movement as the "far right." Instead, she classifies the main actors into five categories—funders, thinkers, sergeants, infantry and power players—analyzing each group's role and interests. The funders are the ultra-wealthy who have grown their influence by exploiting wealth inequality, believing that tearing down democracy helps create wealth. Their ranks are diverse, ranging from tech industry titans to energy and real estate magnates, Wall Street hedge fund managers and heirs of well-known corporations. The role of converting the money donated by the rich into ideology falls to the thinkers. They mostly belong to conservative-leaning think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Claremont Institute. The sergeants are the working-level staff of the movement who organize the masses, exemplified by the tens of thousands of pastors in U.S. conservative churches. Finally, the power players accumulate immense power by mobilizing various people for their agenda. They command media and pastoral networks that reach tens or hundreds of millions of infantry and are positioned to communicate directly with political leaders, including the president.
The root of evil that these anti-democracy forces point to is the "woke" elites, the author says. Woke means "awake" and is used by the U.S. right to mock the excessive political correctness of the left. The right's argument is that because of woke elites, whites are being discriminated against more than Blacks, Christians more than Muslims, and men more than women.
The author cites "Christian nationalism" as the dominant ideology of this anti-democracy movement. Christian nationalism is rooted in the belief that conservative Christians are the main victims of discrimination in American society. It also shares a worldview that only white Christian men are qualified to govern the nation and that an authoritarian savior is needed to set right a lawless world.
The book does not stop at merely analyzing anti-democracy forces but also presents solutions for protecting democracy. The author points out in particular that the anti-democratic forces who claim to represent "real Americans" are in fact only a minority group that has grown its influence through meticulous organization and mobilization. Moreover, they have the limitation of being a heterogeneous group with disparate interests and ideas. Therefore, the author emphasizes that a "big tent" must be built to unite the majority who support democracy, along with organization and mobilization strategies to match. She also stresses that strengthening the principle of separation of church and state, setting the judiciary straight and protecting citizens' voting rights are the starting points for restoring democracy.
The crisis of democracy is not a problem for the United States alone. Korea, too, faces similar threats, including the spread of fake news through social networking services (SNS), the collusion of politics and religion, and politics that divides men and women, generations and rich and poor. This book vividly shows that what tears down democracy is not a single coup or the emergence of a dictator, but money, organization and lies accumulated over a long time.
448 pages, 28,000 won.
