A River of Hate Runs Through Us

Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Guilford Press, 2000, 499 pp.

Two things are a hard sell these days: history and analysis. History because it's "old news" in an era when the information industry is so over-hyped that last week's news is old news. Analysis is hard to sell because, although it may explain something that is happening, it doesn't tell you what to do. Even schoolteachers despair of holding their students' attention and interest when they talk about the past or teach habits of abstract and analytical thought. As a result, we too seldom look to the past for lessons and models and we invest enormous importance in detailed observations without recognizing that the detail is only useful if we know what to make of it.

In Right-Wing Populism in America, the history and analysis are so thoughtful and so powerful that they may change the way you think about the Right's grip on US politics. The authors argue that much of what we experience as "extremist" in right-wing rhetoric is not a startling deviation from mainstream thinking, but instead is imbedded in US culture. Reviewing the history of repression by right-wing factions throughout US history, we see that the powers that be were intimately tied to that repression and often have used the Right for their own purposes.

A common thread that runs through this process is the "producerist narrative"--cultural myth that promotes the notion that America's strength is built on its productive citizens. These industrious producers struggle to prevail in the face of their antithesis, the lazy and immoral parasites who drag the country down with their corruption and dependence. On this basis, the Right has demonized and scapegoated minority groups and elite factions alike. Jewish bankers, Latino immigrants, welfare mothers, and drug addicts all become "natural" targets for the average American.

After reading this long and comprehensive book, it is no longer possible to think simplistically about the Right or to deny its generic roots in US culture. First, the authors demonstrate that drawing distinct separations between the sectors of the Right can obscure the ideological affinities that exist across sectors. Strict attention to the names that journalists and scholars have given to various sectors of the Right, such as the "Christian Right" or "neoconservatives" can cause us to focus on each sector's center rather than its marginal actors, minimizing its links to other sectors and sometimes making it look more benign than it is.

Second, we can no longer see the Right as distinct from a "moderate mainstream." Right-wing populism draws on a culture of prejudice and bigotry that runs through American history. When the expression of bigotry is low-key, we are lulled into the wishful thinking that America has become more pluralist. But the hatred of "parasites" is in fact as present as ever and available to be mobilized, not from the extremes but from the center.

In telling the story of the Right's role and origins in US politics, Berlet and Lyons give us an enormous amount of information, but also a new pair of eyeglasses through which to make sense of it all. You will be richly rewarded for making your way through this important book.

--Jean Hardisty is president of Political Research Associates, Somerville, MA. This review first appeared in the Spring 2001 issue of their newsletter The Public Eye.

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