Review: Banana Republicans

Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a One-Party State
By Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber, Tarcher/Penguin, 264 pages, $11.95

Reviewed by Kevin Rollins

The authors of last year’s Weapons of Mass Deception, which exposed the propaganda fueling the war in Iraq, have expanded their critique of the Bush administration’s manipulation of the media to a broader review of the organizing techniques and abilities of the Right. They look at conservative strategy and provide a veritable termite-chart of conservative organizations and leaders.

Rampton and Stauber also show how these player’s actions reverberate throughout the political scene. Even those who may disagree with their personal politics should find this book instructive in the nuts and bolts of creating a powerful political movement.

In Banana Republicans, David Horowitz is seen as the master-strategist of the modern conservative movement, and his book, The Art of Political War as the organizing manual. Horowitz says, “Politics is war by other means.”

As such, the Right has built a political war machine. It has done so by fostering the development of conservative think tanks and scholars to fight the idea-war, achieving political power and electing candidates to act on these ideas, creating media outlets and training journalists to promote both the ideas and politicians, and by coordinating activities between the three groups to achieve maximum impact.

The emergence of conservative institutions such as Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Republican control of House, Senate and White House, is also the emergence of a “one-party state” where the Right dominates all politics.

Rampton and Stauber contrast this with mainstream liberals who view politics as “debate.” They suggest that the Left stands helplessly by, while the Right builds its war machine. This is hard to believe considering that much of Horowitz’s strategy was made apparent to him in his time as a radical leftist. The Left is a varied group, but the American left is certainly not without leadership, special meetings, think tanks, media coverage, or political power.

What may be of special interest to libertarians and classical liberals is the distinction that is made between the two factions in the conservative movement -- “pro-corporate” libertarians and traditional conservatives. The authors refer to Cato Institute as being part of the “Libertarian Kochtopus” -- a group of organizations funded by brothers Charles and David Koch. What makes these libertarians a part of the Right and not some other grouping is their close connection with mainstream conservatives and their willingness to do the bidding of corporate donors.

The power of Koch money also transformed libertarianism, in ways that members of the party often resented. In the 1970s, Libertarian Party was an odd mix of anarchists and hippies, nudists, science-fiction fans, and conservative fans of write Ayn Rand.

...Cato pioneered a form of libertarianism that stripped away the hippies and counter-culturalists.

Rampton and Stauber do give credit to Cato for opposing the Right on “personal liberties and militarism,” but they rightly have set the challenge to the libertarian movement to define itself as more than just anti-regulation and to distance itself from modern conservatives.

Classical liberals and libertarians should definitely read this book for insight on creating a movement distinct from the conservative right.