The Theocons

June 12, 2006
Conventional wisdom on the left holds that conservatives bring up issues ranging from abortion and gay rights to the teaching of evolution primarily as a cynical ploy to activate their political base, but Linker challenges that notion by detailing the inner workings of the "theoconservative" movement. He describes it as a group of mostly Catholic intellectuals who view American society in sometimes apocalyptic terms, whose absolute and uncompromising moral framework for law—their ultimate goal is "the end of secular politics"—holds great sway in Republican circles. Primarily and almost obsessively concerned with Richard John Neuhaus and his journal First Things
, Linker's exposé sometimes makes it seem as if the political philosophy that animates perhaps a quarter of the electorate is essentially a one-man show. More curious is that, though his words drip with disdain for virtually every position championed by the magazine, Linker himself was an editor at First Things
until barely a year before his book's publication. This book may leave readers yearning for a more broad-based study of how Neuhaus—whose journal has a circulation of well under 50,000—and his ilk have managed to motivate a resurgence of politically minded religiosity in such a large number of Americans.