ABSTRACT
To understand authoritarian populist religious conservatives, we have to go further than was done in my analysis of neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and the managerialism of the new middle class. We also need to think historically both about particular theological impulses and about the importance of how race, class, gender, and religious and regional relations interact over time. But this needs to be in such a way that the intersections and contradictions of these relations are not ignored. In this chapter, I focus largely on the historical genesis of such movements. In Chapter 5, I examine the ways in which all of the major elements within such conservative religious beliefs can make sense to their proponents, even when they seem repressive to an outsider. Then, in Chapter 6, I take one of the most powerful results of their antischool sentiments-home schooling-and critically analyze its social, ideological, and educational impulses and a number of its hidden costs. However, it is important to remember at the outset of this section of the book Gramsci's admonition that there will be elements of good
102 • Educating the "Right" Way
sense as well as bad sense in such conservative positions. Not to realize this makes authoritarian populists into mere puppets. This is decidedly not the case.
