Heinlein on the question "could it happen here?"
I'm not the slavish disciple of Heinlein that you are, Tom, but I credit him with the occasional insight amongst the bombast. I just finished reading "Revolt in 2100" a few minutes ago, and I was struck by the relevance of Heinlein's afterword to our present discussion.
I am aware that the themes of the unwritten stories...have not been elaborated sufficiently to lend conviction...to two notions: the idea that space travel, once firmly established, could fall into disuse; and secondly the idea that the United States could lapse into a dictatorship of superstition.
....
As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of all faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless, this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful n this country...
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not--but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-'furriners' in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening--particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
...(biographical sketch of the fictional evangelist/dictator Nehemiah Scudder)...
Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties--and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without--mind you--the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for aswallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
Robert A. Heinlein, "Concerning Stories Never Written", postscript to "Revolt in 2100"; October 1952. Transcribed by hand; all typos are my fault.
Heinlein begins his essay talking specifically about religion, but it's clear from the way he goes on to incorporate Communism and the Klan that he's talking about the behavior of cults and cultists. Theology is not a necessary component of this psychopathology--it's about fanatical belief, whether in the supernatural or in a political or economic dogma.
It's instructive to examine the Church of Latter-Day Republicans in light of Heinlein's concerns....or maybe not, simply because there's so much to examine it gets overwhelming. I just deleted several thousand words because I realized I was simply checking off through illustration every one of Heinlein's descriptions of the danger, minus a few minor historical archaisms relevant in 1952 but irrelevant nowadays.
Simpler and briefer to ask: Which parts of Heinlein's description of the nature of a potential threat to American liberties--a potential threat of dictatorship--do not apply to the Latter-Day Republicans led by the Prophet Bush?
Like I said, there are archaisms that don't matter, like the way that Republicans have toned down the bigotry and racism that were more visible when Heinlein wrote that. But the major points are all there: Incorporation of evangelism and fundamentalism into a political ideology...intolerance of dissent and attempts to suppress it...pursuit of a "permanent Republican majority" through exploitation of the fact that "our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington"..."a good large dose of anti-'furriners' in general and anti-intellectuals here at home"...reliance on "television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda"...
Tell me, Tom, where does modern Republicanism not conform to Heinlein's description of a cult aiming to take over America?