Money, Lies, and God

Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

De: Katherine Stewart

Narrado por: Patricia Rodriguez

Bloomsbury presents Money, Lies, and God by Katherine Stewart, read by Patricia Rodriguez.

"An indispensable citizen’s guide to the anti-democratic MAGA Right in America."–Congressman Jamie Raskin

"Meticulously researched, elegantly written, and hard-hitting."–Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The acclaimed author of The Power Worshippers exposes the inner workings of the “engine of unreason” roiling American culture and politics.

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus, disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,” pronatalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid truthers, militia members masquerading as “concerned moms” and battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about attacking democracy at its foundations.

Along the way, she provides a compelling analysis of the authoritarian reaction in the United States. She demonstrates that the movement relies on several distinct constituencies, with very different and often conflicting agendas. Stewart’s reporting and comprehensive political analysis helps reframe the conversation about the moral collapse of conservatism in America and points the way forward toward a democratic future.

©2025 Katherine Stewart (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Essential listening

Great update on the current date of the right wing agenda. It’s helpful to understand the thinking that underlies much of what is going on in today’s crazy political realm. It is terrifying but not entirely hopeless. We need to learn that organization is key.

Lack of meaningful chapter titles

I never was sure what this—overall—was going to be about. I was unfamiliar with most of the religious persons names, locations, positions. Yet, the book was so comprehensive, I got a lot out of it. No regrets about listening.

Quality of research

So eye-opening and terrifying it should be included in horror section. Definitely a call to action.

Must read for all who value democracy!

For anyone whom might feel discouraged and disconnected at our current political climate, this excellent work both educates and resurrects hope for a path forward.

Finally, An Explanation As To What The Hell Is Going On

The amazing amount of information that was presented. What we chose to do with this information matters, more than ever. Get, Be, and Stay as Informed as you can.

Enlighten ing read. Well researched and written.

This book sheds light on what is currently happening in the USA. This is the most turbulent period of history in my life and this book tells us why.

Finally It All Is Spelled Out

This book pulls together all the currents creating our critical times. A MUST READ AND HEAR.

Powerful and Important work.

Katherine Stewart’s Money, Lies, and God is a deeply researched and convicting analysis of how Christian nationalism operates as a political identity rather than a religious movement. She exposes the ways in which wealth disparity, public education, and religious institutions are leveraged to erode democracy and consolidate power among a select few.

At its core, Stewart argues that Christian nationalism is not about faith but about political and economic control. It exploits religious language and institutions to advance an anti-democratic, authoritarian agenda that prioritizes power and profit over genuine spiritual values. The book highlights how public education has been under attack—not just for ideological reasons, but to redirect public funds into private, often religious, institutions that cultivate compliance and reinforce conservative economic structures.

Stewart also dismantles the myth that the “war on woke” is a battle between everyday Americans and elites. Instead, she presents it as an internal class struggle among the upper middle class, driven by resentment and the protection of privilege. The far-right movement, while appearing united, is riddled with contradictions—claiming to support workers while catering to corporate interests, advocating for free speech while banning books, and promoting religious freedom while pushing for theocratic control.

One of the book’s most urgent warnings is that extreme wealth inequality is corroding democracy. Economic disparity fuels division, making people more susceptible to disinformation and authoritarian narratives. Meanwhile, the co-mingling of church and state has created a financial and political pipeline that allows tax-exempt religious institutions to act as unregulated political machines.

Stewart offers a call to action: knowledge and organization are the antidotes to rising authoritarianism. While the right has spent decades building a well-funded infrastructure of think tanks, media outlets, and political networks, pro-democracy movements must adopt a similar long-term strategy. She urges readers to engage in their communities—supporting public education, holding churches accountable, and mobilizing against the erosion of democratic institutions.

In short, Money, Lies, and God is a wake-up call to recognize the forces undermining democracy and the urgent need for action. It is both a critique and a roadmap for those who believe in a just, inclusive society.

Excellent! A must read for anyone who values democracy.

A deep dive into the factors driving Christian Nationalism and its hidden anti-democratic agenda. Excellent writing from a trained journalist who brings lofty and heavy intellectual concepts down onto the “bottom shelf”. Highly recommend.

Describes a well funded international fascist cult

This is an excellent resource full of rich substance in decoding why otherwise reasonable people vote for governments that take a jackhammer to the foundations of their freedoms and very livelihoods. Katherine Stewart documents in laser sharp detail the persons and organizations that have been working over multiple decades to cultivate the influence campaigns that have created an international cult of deliberate axiomatic falsehoods. Most of us have encountered media items or persons who recite with confidence simplistic tropes that are patently untrue. In this book, Stewart exposes how it happened—and, importantly, the vastness of the money and resources that are and have been executed to flood the zone with confusion and falsehood (long before that expression entered the popular lexicon). This book describes the engine run by a fascist kleptocratic oligarchy in the United States, and its internal machinations.

As the title indicates, this book is divided into describing three main components of this international theocratic influence machine—those are Money, Lies, and God (meaning the washing of right wing political and ideological objectives through a pseudo-religious context). Stewart breaks down the parts of this vast coordinated effort into funders (billionaires, donors), thinkers (think tanks), sergeants (activists, election and climate deniers), infantry (conservative voters, Trump supporters), and power players (leaders, politicians). Stewart illustrates how each of these components draws upon and feeds the others—without all legs of this stool reinforcing each other, this entire influence enterprise would not have the dominant effectiveness it currently enjoys. This goes beyond just the usual suspects—Stewart reveals several heretofore obscure persons and organizations that are having outsized influence in the growth of autocratic theocracy, and among them is a church-based operation in California, which Stewart reveals has global ministries in multiple cities across five continents.

Although strategic billionaire funding provides the backbone of resources to this informal network, individual believers such as church members and voters are routinely fleeced by several of these operatives, allowing them to live lavishly while propagating deliberate and manipulative disinformation. One tactic is the fanning of unjustified sexual anxiety (such as over any arrangement other than patriarchal heterosexuality, in which even a heterosexual wife employed in the workforce outside the home is cast as deviant)—this is a documented technique of fascist messaging. This is especially raw and manipulative in Christian nationalist propaganda, which, when combined with cult-like social pressure, results in violent intentions and resultant actions—January 6, 2021 is a well known example. Stewart notes that German observers have recognized these phenomena for what they are: the execution of an explicitly fascist playbook, the destruction from which they know so well—and thus the Germans fear for their friends in the US.

In a note of hope, Stewart identifies six principle findings, which are: non-fascists are still in the majority, the right wing is divided against itself, the separation of church and state is a good idea (we should have it), extreme levels of material inequality are eroding democracy, knowledge is power, and organization matters (and it's time to dispense with the purity cliques). In all of these areas it's possible to counter and neutralize the messaging of organizations peddling deliberate falsehoods—they know these are lies, and they use them for their manipulative emotional effect. For example, we must shine light on all the dark money being deployed, and help those caught in a disinformation cult to see that it's not DEI that is pulling them back, and instead their woes are the direct result of financialization with private equity actors cannibalizing corporations for short term profit—fixing that is the key to stopping the fascists! We need to define an optimal economic and societal normalcy—FDR provided a good start in his advocacy of the New Deal of the 1930s. We can build on that advocacy base, and Stewart provides multiple indicators on how to develop a society where all are free and prosperous, both for the near term and long term—it's time to execute those actions.