Leaders of the Christian right play “on the personal and economic despair of, essentially, the American working class … (and) promise a world of magic.” These are the words of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, who argues that the political Christian right, called “Dominionism” as a political movement, shares basic ideological qualities with the fascist movements led by Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler. These basic qualities include the fundamental violence of the movement, the attack on critical discourse, the drawing of strength from social frustration and the conformity of members.

Though Dominionism may not lead to World War III, its imagery is suffused with violence: the “rapture” and “apocalypse,” the sending of the good to heaven and the condemning of the evil to hell, the ultimate separation of “self” and “other.” It is certainly easy, and tempting, to think in dichotomies such as these. White is white; black is black. Everything fits nicely into its box, no critical thinking required. Too bad reality is so often in grayscale or (gasp!) even in color.

This is not Christianity. This is not based in Scripture or tradition or ethical processing. America’s leaders and prospective leaders have relinquished all claims to free will: “God and Pat Robertson and General Petraeus have a plan. There’s nothing we can do.” This mantra may be comforting to those who are grieving, or to those who have little to live for (or on) here on Earth, but it is not responsible government. Only the socially frustrated, huddled masses who are convinced that life on Earth is meaningless can be mentally conditioned into believing such propaganda.

The politicians who propagate it don’t believe it. Campaigns are continually won and lost on such bizarre and peripheral issues as gay marriage and abortion rights, yet (and indeed) federal officeholders, as a rule, never really do anything about these issues. If they did, there would be no reason to re-elect them. Somehow, a public that has very wide-ranging opinions on economic and procedural issues has been unified by shared belief in two or three unrealizable goals. And the public is rewarded with just enough religious funding to keep hope alive. It is meaningless in terms of substantive change, but it is a good investment in party politics.

Democracy is based on a belief in relativism, a belief that everyone has a right to be heard. Dominionists want to silence the voice of their opposition and, because they refuse to believe in reality or logic, they refuse to consider that they might be wrong or engage in any rational debate of any sort, unraveling the very fabric of American democracy.