A disturbing symbiosis exists between the disruptive, norm-trashing far right in our national politics and a similar force that has become prominent within the Catholic hierarchy in the United States. The relationship is alarming, given the established wisdom of church-state separation, but hardly surprising. As Mary Jo McConahay illustrates in Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and The Far Right, the two entities have become, over decades, increasingly dependent on and subservient to each other in a mutual pursuit of cultural influence.
Neither the political nor religious — in this case Catholic — right has gained its impressively disruptive power overnight. The evolution has occurred over decades.
Scholars and journalists have established in detail the arc of development in the political realm. Such works as Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean; How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both professors of government at Harvard University; Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by investigative reporter Jane Mayer; and, earlier, Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., are several that come immediately to mind.
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