21st Century: Not the American Century?

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Michelle Goldberg:

Kevin Phillips' grim new book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, puts the country's degeneration into historical perspective, and that perspective is not conducive to optimism.

The title is a bit misleading, because only the middle section of the book, which is divided into thirds, deals with the religious right. The first part, "Oil and American Supremacy," is about America's prospects as oil becomes scarcer and more expensive, and the last third, "Borrowed Prosperity," is about America's unsustainable debt.

Phillips' argument is that imperial overstretch, dependence on obsolete energy technologies, intolerant and irrational religious fervor, and crushing debt have led to the fall of previous great powers, and will likely lead to the fall of this one...

"Conservative true believers will scoff: the United States is sue generis, they say, a unique and chosen nation," writes Phillips. "What did or did not happen to Rome, imperial Spain, the Dutch Republic, and Britain is irrelevant.

The catch here, alas, is that these nations also thought they were unique and that God was on their side. The revelation that He was apparently not added a further debilitating note to the later stages of each national decline."

[Note: I always liked Lincoln's re-formulation of this idea -- that we should spend more time trying to be on God's side.]

I generally resist declarations that this is the end of days. My feeling is that people who say this are instead reflecting on the end of their days -- the passing of their youth, the onset of their middle- or old-age, the loss of their power and influence, and so forth.

But Kevin Phillips is no hack and, furthermore, he was there at the beginning:

His 1969 book, "The Emerging Republican Majority," both predicted and celebrated Republican hegemony. As chief elections and voting patterns analyst for the 1968 Nixon campaign, he is often credited for the Southern strategy that led to the realignment of the Republican Party toward Sun Belt social conservatives. Today's governing Republican coalition is partly his Frankenstein.

That gives him some street cred. We should think twice before dismissing him and his thesis.

Speaking of which...of the three factors -- technology, religion and economics -- I believe we'll have the hardest time with religion because it eventually could eclipse the supremecy of the US Constitution. Not only that: it has put us on a path to reject the world of science and observable fact and replace it with the virtues of faith and personal conviction.

As if to illustrate this point, Goldberg quotes an historian who said, of Philip II of Spain, "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence."

Sound familiar?

That said, I'm afraid the solution to this is much, much, bigger than just finding a charismatic Democrat with a spine to overthrow all those crazy Republicans.