Jeff Sharlet Quotes

The politics of that year [2004] are old now, but the problem remains the same, the real culture clash of American life. It's between the essence of fundamentalism - paternalism, authority, and charity - and the messy imperatives of democracy, "the din of the vox populi" once derided by Abram Vereide. It's the difference between false unity, preached from above, and real solidarity, pledged between brothers and sisters - the kinds who are always bickering.

Fundamentalism is a 20th-century phenomenon, but that kind of religious fervor actually has not always been associated with conservative goals.

Elite fundamentalism has always going to be involved with a certain set of conservative interests, but certainly not exclusively Republican.

To him, homosexuality is only a symbol for what he learned from the Family is a greater plague: government by people, not by God.

What's interesting is the populace movement of fundamentalism is starting to mirror that approach that elite fundamentalism has long had of trying to have influence across the political spectrum.

By ignoring the apparent contradictions of scripture, fundamentalism ignores its questions, reducing its complexity to implicit equations. Hate equals love; obedience is freedom.

America is going to start happening outside of the parties.

What Tim [Kreutter] is doing is owning people, training them and owning them. Even if he wants them to do good things, the principle is corrupting. It is the seduction principle.

Talking with her was like listening to a ballad on a radio station that fades in and out as you drive, sometimes clear and sentimental and tuned perfectly to the passing land, sometimes filled with static, lost, a song played too many times.

I read as easily as I breathe.

The Family is the oldest and arguably most influential religious political organization in Washington.

Whoever is holding the power says, "Yeah, let's keep things civil and quiet." Whoever's outside say's, "No, I'm not going to keep things civil and quiet, I'm going to bang on the door."

There are real radical Muslim groups out there that really are pretty villainous. You don't have to make them up.

Like Jerry Falwell and [Tim] LaHaye, [Pat] Robertson is a minister who advocates a Bible-based, pro-family agenda. Robertson, a faith healer, also claims to have controlled the course of a hurricane by directing it away from his headquarters.

My favorite forgotten President in American history is James Buchanan, who in defending really robust and sharp-elbowed debates said, "I like the noise of democracy. I like the sound of people in the streets making noise."

What did "good government" really mean? Langlie and his brotherhood promised an end to political corruption. (There's no evidence that Langlie ever even took a drink, much less a bribe.) The days of "honest graft" were over, at least for a while. But seen from another perspective - that of ordinary citizens without access to Langlie and Abram's elite network - Langlie didn't so much end corruption as legalize it. Langlie wasn't opposed to a government organized around the interests of the greedy; he just didn't want to have to break the law to serve them.

What the Cold War did was provide a fairly clearly defined enemy and it's easy to organize around that.

The Cold War was really the great struggle of the 20th Century and it shaped American political life from top to bottom.

. . . private group prayers were the modern equivalent of a backroom cigar.

You can recruit the populace conservatism for the interests of corporate conservatism that the two things can be married into one unholy union.