Who are the Social Conservatives?

I have been reading on Fundamentalism and Dominionism, and trying to work out the form of their political movement in America. I wrote the following as a comment on Daily Kos, and it all seemed to come together. This is what I think is happening poltically in America now. I started with the way populism fits into Fascism, and began to realize that the fundamentalist political movement in America is a similar anti-modernist populist movement. So here it is.

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We seem to be facing a populist fundamentalist religion-based, very anti-modernism political movement. The key, as I see it, is that it is anti-modernist and a powerful poltical movement. Because of those two elements, it resembles Fascism.

I have been reading on 19th and 20th century "isms" recently (and I am looking for some good books on Populism in America and generally, preferably sociological studies or good histories.) But the distinction between Conservatism in an agrarian society and Fascism in an industrial society has struck me as interesting.

According to Roger Eatwell, Fascism has a strong level of populism in it, but is a rejection of liberalism. It is a middle class rejection of the uncertainties in an industrial society, but it is also a rejection of Marxism and Socialism. Fascists normally gain power by attaching themselves to older type conservatives who already have power in government. The older-type conservatives use the fascists as shock troops against Socialists and Marxists. But Fascists, Socialist and Marxists are all middle-class movements in a modern market-based industrial society, and all have a major populist element.

Conservatism is found in a more agricultural society and is the reaction of the older powers-that-be to the rise of the middle class itself. Older type conservatives tend to be aristocrats, military officers and Catholic religious leaders.

Franco was an older type conservative, while Mussolini and Hitler were Fascists.

One thing that intrigues me about this discussion is that until recently in America, religion has been either conservative in the old sense or simply not included in modern politics. Modernism has meant separating church and state.

But the history of religion in the US has been the displacement of the older religions by evangelical religions, particularly Baptist and Methodist in the 19th century. This hasn't been politically important in the US because of the broad acceptance of the separation of church and state as a bedrock principle of being modern. Until recently.

It seems to me that evangelical religion and fundamentalist religion both have strong elements of populism built in. Fundamentalism has in addition a strong belief that everything must be subordinate to God and religion, and radio and TV fundamentalist evangelists have been quietly building their outreach programs since the 1930's. The fundamentalists also totally reject modernism. They began to spread into politics with Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Nixon's guy (Coulter?), etc. probably in the 70's.

With Bush 43, they feel they have elected one of their own. Tom DeLay is another fundamentalist, and their are seven top Republican Senators with 100% Christian Coalition ratings - Bill Frist, TN, Mitch McConnell, KY, Rick Santorum, PA, Bob Bennet, UT, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, TX, Jon Kyl, AZ, and George Allen, VA.

If I am correct, what we are facing is a populist, anti-modernist, fundamentalist religious based political movement. And this is the answer to Thomas Frank's question, "What's the Matter with Kansas."