Right-Wing Populism
in America:
Too Close for Comfort
This Website Provides Online Resources, Updates, and Background Material
Summary
What the Book is About
Right–wing militias and other anti–government organizations have received heightened public attention since the Oklahoma City bombing. While such groups are often portrayed as marginal extremists, the values they espouse have influenced mainstream politics and culture far more than most Americans realize. This important volume offers an in–depth look at the historical roots and current landscape of right–wing populism in the United States. Illuminated is the potent combination of anti–elitist rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and ethnic scapegoating that has fueled many political movements from the colonial period to the present day.
The book examines the Jacksonians, the Ku Klux Klan, and a host of Cold War nationalist cliques, and relates them to the evolution of contemporary electoral campaigns of Patrick Buchanan, the militancy of the Posse Comitatus and the Christian Identity movement, and an array of millennial sects. Combining vivid description and incisive analysis, Berlet and Lyons show how large numbers of disaffected Americans have embraced right–wing populism in a misguided attempt to challenge power relationships in U.S. society. Highlighted are the dangers these groups pose for the future of our political system and the hope of progressive social change.
About the Authors
Chip Berlet has written about right wing movements for over 35 years, with bylines in The New York Times, Boston Globe, the Progressive, and scores of other publications. He was senior analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, MA, and editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash (South End Press, 1995). He has contributed articles and chapters to numerous scholarly books and journals and his media appearances and cites as an expert include Newsweek, National Public Radio, and Nightline.
Chip Berlet collects his online writings at the Research for Progress website:
http://www.researchforprogress.us
Matthew N. Lyons has been writing about right-wing politics and other political movements for over twenty-five years. He is currently the main contributor to the radical antifascist blog Three Way Fight, and in 2015 authored the book Arier, Patriarchen, Übermenschen: Die extreme Rechte in den USA [Aryans, Patriarchs, Supermen: The extreme right in the USA], published by Unrast Verlag, Münster, Germany. Matthew works as an archivist and is a co-trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust, which manages the intellectual properties of the late playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry.
Matthew N. Lyons: writings on politics and history are at:
http://matthewnlyons.net
Right-Wing Populism
in America:
Too Close for Comfort
by
Chip Berlet and
Matthew N. Lyons
New York, Guilford Press, 2000
Now Available as an
EPUB E-Book
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Outstanding Book Award,
Gustavus Myers Center
for the Study of Bigotry and
Human Rights in North America
The Book that Predicted the
Tea Party Movement & Donald Trump
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