I picked up a copy of Max Blumenthal's new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, at the Anchorage Barnes & Noble last Sunday. It was a bit of synchronicity to find it right after I had given a talk related to how many figures on the GOP fundamentalist right revel in the imprecatory.I read the parts about Alaska and Sarah Palin first, as Max based some of his investigations into the Palins' ties to dispensationalist and millenialist groups on my help or tips. Those parts are excellent, with a few minor editorial flaws (the Palin Wasilla electoral victory was 1996, not 1994, for instance).
The overall impact of the book - I'm reading it fairly quickly - may be formidable, though. Not only is the book one relentlessly described failure of purported GOP morality after another, acted out by Republican luminary after Republican leader after GOP icon, the descriptions are visceral, probing and sometimes humorous, in the blackest of layers of irony.
The timing of the publication couldn't have been more appropriate:
Here's Max confronting GOP figures, showing his black humor and gift for understated humor:
Max tackles a whole bundle of issues - Republican hypocrisy on morality; sexual repression; repressed or encouraged violence against minorities, women, gays and liberals; and how this is truned into a money machine by GOP-related organizations - quite well. Combined with Max's hard-hitting style, this book is turning out to be a compelling read.
I'll have a full review when I finish the book.
