The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire by Matt Taibbi

Oct 17, 2008 Xysea rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: politic junkies, humorists, satirists, anthropologists, whack-a-doodle studiers of all kinds

Shelves: political, humor

Let me just say that Matt Taibbi kicks much ass, so when I say this next part don't shoot me. Whenever I see him on Bill Maher I think he swears too much. Yes, a contradiction but then I am full of contradictions.

Anyway, kudos to Matt for being an intrepid reporter. I wouldn't have wanted to participate in the church he did, to find out why people are so deranged. But he did and I and this book thank him for it.

Told with a great dose of humor, irony, satire and bewilderment this book is a great...more Let me just say that Matt Taibbi kicks much ass, so when I say this next part don't shoot me. Whenever I see him on Bill Maher I think he swears too much. Yes, a contradiction but then I am full of contradictions.

Anyway, kudos to Matt for being an intrepid reporter. I wouldn't have wanted to participate in the church he did, to find out why people are so deranged. But he did and I and this book thank him for it.

Told with a great dose of humor, irony, satire and bewilderment this book is a great journey. It goes into what makes Americans who they are - the good, the bad and the ugly. (PS if you're one of those 'love America types who can't stand for people to criticize your country let me say (a) you're no patriot, you're part of the problem and (b) this book probably ain't for you.)

America is full of whack-a-doodles, tin-foil hat wearers, wingnuts, freaks and general misfits. Always has been. But over the years we've morphed our psyches, twisted them actually, into something perverse, egotistical and painful. We're still shouting 'We're #1' with big foam fingers to people who are actually passing us in the global race. How much dumber could we be? Plenty, actually.

Because on top of that, we think we're moral. Well, we're really not but religion works for good cover in the interim. We're greedy, self-interested folks who happen to like to shop a lot and eat a lot, and in some case, pray a lot. We critize the intellectuals, and despise elitism (?), and then get mad when someone says we cling to guns and religion - but we ARE clinging to guns and religion. lol

Matt's book goes a long way to exploring this cultural dichotomy and it's development. I found myself either shaking my head or chuckling - we ARE deranged, and that's not always a bad thing.

In the end though, we probably should work on being more united and being on a more even keel - we should probably work to be of the world and not above it, but it seems hard to comprehend how we can do that being so myopic. Make no mistake unless we get ourselves to a cultural opthamologist, we are indeed at the twilight of the American empire.

What we need to decide is where to from here - but even that will be difficult if we refuse to put our glasses on to read the map.(less)

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Apr 14, 2009 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, political, history

Wow, what a scary, hilarious and depressing book this was! Veteran Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi visits two extreme sides of today's political "debate", a Christian Evangelist church in Texas and the wingnuts of the "Truth 9/11" squad, who maintain the whole Sept. 11 terrorist attack was really a government plot. A plot for what, no one seems quite clear, but a plot nonetheless.

His visit to the fire and brimstone evangelical mega-church in Texas is, of course, the scariest to this...more Wow, what a scary, hilarious and depressing book this was! Veteran Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi visits two extreme sides of today's political "debate", a Christian Evangelist church in Texas and the wingnuts of the "Truth 9/11" squad, who maintain the whole Sept. 11 terrorist attack was really a government plot. A plot for what, no one seems quite clear, but a plot nonetheless.

His visit to the fire and brimstone evangelical mega-church in Texas is, of course, the scariest to this atheist. To imagine people buy into this far right wing talk of the apocalypse, brought on by Hillary Clinton (who really is the devil incarnate for these folks), is a truly depressing thought. Fine, have your religion if you need it, but show a little skepticism for these trumped up claims bellowed from the preacher man. There are some simply bust-a-gut laughing sections here, as he brings a liberalism and a truly cynical view to the scene.

He's equally tough on the Truth 9/11 group. In fact, one of the funniest sections of the book is his "transcript" of a meeting of the cabal lead by The Dark One himself, Dick Cheney and the rest of the leading neocons, as they figure out the plans for the 9/11 plot. It is so laughably an accurate account of how things must have happened if even a portion of their conspiracy theories are right that it makes it clear how far fetched it all really is. Yet, astoundingly, something like 40% believe some or all of these theories.

He intersperses these two stories with truly depressing chapters on how things currently are in Congress. The book actually goes past the 2006 Democrat uprising yet describes a "business as usual" attitude among our Congress critters. It's a very bleak, dark and depressing look at the politics of power and just how much it is to just stay in power and get money from lobbies. The main thrust of the 9/11 Truthers is that the whole plot was to change public opinion, but reading these other chapters makes you believe that they don't care about public opinion in the slightest.

I wish I still had the book on me so I could quote a few of the more outrageously cynical and humorous paragraphs. But Taibbi also does a very good job at trying to figure out what makes these people tick. What is it about big time religion that attracts folks? He works hard at humanizing them even if he can't believe what he is seeing sometimes. He understands both groups attempts at getting black and white answers in this very grey and confusing world. He makes the point that the 9/11 are just making their own version of the "truth", as today's news/marketers can't be trusted to do it for them.

A very good read, but ultimately very depressing. All the more so given the slow rate of change with the current administration, and the business as usual of both Congress and appointed leaders like Larry Summers, who has been in the pocket of big finance for years and yet is Obama's chief economic advisor.

Sigh. Now I'm depressed all over again.(less)

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Jun 17, 2008 Dale rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, history, favorites

The Great Derangement has the best tutorial I've seen on the actual workings of Congress. Chapter 2 describes in detail the processes of the Republican-controlled congress (prior to the 2006 elections), explaining in detail how bills are actually created and rammed through. Taibbi explains why it is that CSPAN2 is so mind-numbingly dull - an endless parade of house resolutions to name a post office or honor a dead chamber of commerce booster. The real work of the congress is done in the middle o...more The Great Derangement has the best tutorial I've seen on the actual workings of Congress. Chapter 2 describes in detail the processes of the Republican-controlled congress (prior to the 2006 elections), explaining in detail how bills are actually created and rammed through. Taibbi explains why it is that CSPAN2 is so mind-numbingly dull - an endless parade of house resolutions to name a post office or honor a dead chamber of commerce booster. The real work of the congress is done in the middle of the night (literally) in the offices of committee chairmen, energetically inserting and deleting provisions into legislation to satisfy the needs of their true constituents, the large corporations that donate so generously to the campaigns of those committee chairmen. This is Civics 101 as it was never taught in our public schools. Chapter 6 describes the same process at work now that the Democrats have a clear majority in Congress. Not much has changed. Later in the book, Taibbi describes a meeting between leaders of the peace movement with the new Democratic leadership - a meeting in which the topic of discussion was how to sell angry voters on the reason why the Democratic congress did absolutely nothing to end the Iraq war.

The premise of this book is that starting 20 or so years ago both government and the media abandoned their responsibilities. Government became unabashedly a government of the few against the interests of the many, and corporate controlled media simply stopped reporting the news, turning to trivialities and sleaze instead. This left a vacuum into which poured the phenomena of right-wing end-times fundamentalism and left-wing conspiracy theories. Both camps have enormous numbers of followers, and neither side is able to talk to the other.

Taibbi infiltrated the Cornerstone Baptist mega-church in San Antonia Texas - Pastor John Hagee's church. He dove right in and went through their training/indoctrination programs, attended weekly cell meetings and the weekly church services. The ideology preached at that church, as at most fundamentalist churches, is equal parts anti-liberal, anti-science, pro-Israel, and pure ignorance and prejudice throughout, with massive doses of demons, Satan, hell, and a vengeful wrathful Lord. It makes for entertaining, but scary, reading. Taibbi was pretty depressed by the end of that months-long experience.

He also spent considerable time with 9/11 Truthers - people who hold a variety of evidence-free beliefs about a vast corporate/government conspiracy to carry out and cover up the attacks of September 11, 2001. He characterizes this as a left-wing movement. I'm not so sure about that, since many of its proponents seem not to have ever been left-wing before they adopted the theories. But, whatever. The problem from Taibbi's perspective is that 36% of the US population believes in some part of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. A substantial part of the population, in other words, is willing to accept preposterous theories without evidence, because they are so convinced that every time they read a paper, see something on television, or read news on the internet, that they are being lied to. And they are right, for the most part.

In the end Taibbi sees some cause to think that the situation might be changing. Written at the end of 2007 he saw the campaigns of Ron Paul, John Edwards, and Barack Obama indications that people are starting to rebel in meaningful ways both from the 2-same-party system and from the us/them demonization represented by religious fundamentalism and conspriracy crackpotism. He points out that Obama is massively funded by the same corporate interests that fund the rest of the power elite, but believed that Obama's 'tone' represented a promise of change for the better. We'll see.

I wish that Christian evangelicals and conspiracy theorists could read this book. It provides a much-needed dose of reality. Sadly, as with most political books, he will be preaching mostly to a choir of like-minded realists. (less)

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May 29, 2008 joseph rated it 4 of 5 stars

Taibbi's thesis: Americans no longer have shared facts or a shared pool of knowledge from which to draw conclusions about their world. The institutions that ostensibly should provide objective truth, the government and the media, do not do so. In this intellectual wilderness, Americans have created their own truths, their own narrative.

Taibbi compares two narratives that he sees as being predominant. On the right, there are evangelicals of the megachurch variety, lonely, damaged people who in e...more Taibbi's thesis: Americans no longer have shared facts or a shared pool of knowledge from which to draw conclusions about their world. The institutions that ostensibly should provide objective truth, the government and the media, do not do so. In this intellectual wilderness, Americans have created their own truths, their own narrative.

Taibbi compares two narratives that he sees as being predominant. On the right, there are evangelicals of the megachurch variety, lonely, damaged people who in exchange for camaraderie and a sense of community in an atomized culture, are willing to swallow the most obscene claims of preachers like John Hagee: 9/11 and Katrina are punishment for America's permissiveness toward homosexuals; America should support Israel, for only when Israel holds dominion over all lands promised to it in the bible can the apocalypse and rapture (the ultimate aspirations of true Christians) occur.

On the other side are 9/11 Truthers, those kids in the subway screening Loose Change who believe that the Bush administration, in cahoots with any multitude of government agencies, military brass, and the FAA, planned and executed the murder of 3,000 of its own citizens. Taibbi goes through the various, often contradictory, theories of how 9/11 came to pass, revealing the absurdity of the claims (not a hard task). Taibbi has made fun of the Truthers for some time now, often to hilarious effect, but in this book he seems more saddened than pissed off. He goes undercover as a Truther himself and, at the conclusion of another meeting where no action has been planned beyond scheduling another meeting, Taibbi implores his fellow Truthers actualize their discontent, rather than continue their circle jerk.

What Taibbi is really interested in is what such a movement says about American democracy:

"Rather than admit to their own powerlessness and irrelevance, or admit that they've spent the last fifty years or so electing leaders who openly handed their tax money to business cronies and golfed in Scotland while middle America's jobs were being sent overseas, the adherents to 9/11 Truth instead flatter themselves with fantasies about a ruling class obsessed with keeping the terrible truth from the watchful, exacting eye of The People.

Whereas the real conspiracy of power in America is right out in the open and always has been, only nobody cares, so long as Fear Factor and Baseball Tonight come on at the right times. A conspiracy like the one described by 9/11 Truth would only be necessary in a country where the people are a threat to actually govern themselves effectively.

But none of that even matters nearly as much as what 9/11 Truth says about the mental state of the population. The whole narrative of the movement is so completely and utterly retarded, it boggles the mind. It's like something cooked up by a bunch of teenagers raised on texting, TV and Sports Illustrated who just saw V For Vendetta for the first time and decided to write a Penguin History of the World on the strength of it. A genius on the order of a Mozart or a Shakespeare would be hard-pressed to dream up the awesome comedy that is the alleged plot from the point of view of the plotters."

This book is perhaps not as laugh out loud funny as previous works, but Taibbi never wanted to be purely a gag man. At times it feels like Taibbi has not completed his thoughts, has more to say on his subjects, but hasn't the time or perspective to truly get at what he thinks it all means.

Conclusion: Taibbi Rules.(less)

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Jul 08, 2008 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars

The comparisons to Hunter S. Thompson are widespread and inevitable. After all, Taibbi not only shows much of Thompsons's influence, he's a national political writer/editor for Rolling Stone.

But Taibbi also shows a voice of his own, updating that sense of moral outrage and energetic despair for the modern political climate. His discussions of where and how American government have gone wrong, and how it has left Americans on both sides of the political spectrum moving around in bewildered inani...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Andrew Hecht rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: public-library, non-fiction, political-animal, die-laughing, must-read

For fans of Taibbi, this is pure gold. If you want a sense of how fucked up things are, it's a perfect read: a s edifying as it is entertaining.

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Nov 24, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

After having spent time as a participant-observer with extreme evangelical christians and hardcore believers in 911 as government conspiracy—more time with the former—reporter Matt Taibbi examines both as reactionary faiths: popular movements that lend meaning in a world rendered opaque by a derelict media that obfuscates the actions of the political class upon which it should be reporting. His encounters are with those who have been—pardon the pun—left behind by the prime movers of society. He...more

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Jun 05, 2013 Gregg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: presidents, politics, americanlife

My favorite gonzo journalist goes undercover in the Cornerstone Church and goes toe-to-toe with the 9/11 Truth movement to explore a sound, if maybe simplistic thesis: the complete unravelling of the American political process has resulted in an atomized public clinging to movements of greater and greater fucked-upness to explain their downward spiral.

(That's my term, by the way, not his. And I know. It's awesome.)

It's possible I'm misreading the point of the book. Taibbi himself acknowledges t...more My favorite gonzo journalist goes undercover in the Cornerstone Church and goes toe-to-toe with the 9/11 Truth movement to explore a sound, if maybe simplistic thesis: the complete unravelling of the American political process has resulted in an atomized public clinging to movements of greater and greater fucked-upness to explain their downward spiral.

(That's my term, by the way, not his. And I know. It's awesome.)

It's possible I'm misreading the point of the book. Taibbi himself acknowledges the vagaries of his own argument. But then, I don't read him for vagaries. I read him to wallow in the details and soak up his invective. He takes the reader by the hand and explains how bills actually become laws (about 19 established power p,ayers in Congress make the actual deals), how the Democrats sold their constituents down the river in 2006 by more or less continuing the Bush doctrines they derided in their campaigns, and how all of this dovetails with a further splintering of the electorate into what he terms the Derangement, resulting in more nutcase theories and movements being taken up by people with sanity, reasonableness, and very real and legitimate gripes about their lives and this country.

I don't fully buy the notion that the Truth movement represents the mainstream left, although his figure of 26 million adherents to a cause that's trying to prove a Bush-Beltway conspiracy behind the hijacking is quite unsettling. (It's fun to watch him ask a belligerent Truther to "step outside" to settle their differences about his derisive Rolling Stone 9/11 Truth column,, only to see the guy "slink away.") And I don't know enough about the Cornerstone Church to say whether or not it represents Religious America, although I don't doubt for a minute Taibbi's assertion that the movers and shakers behind it are trying to whip up Israeli support.

But I do buy the overall point: that mainstream America is too busy chasing its own tail in an effort to find a "them" to set up in contrast to an "us" they already had to brainwash themselves into believing. The media and our elected representatives have sold us down the river, but blaming it on a left/right slant completely misses the point.

As usual, Taibbi doesn't pretend to have any solutions. Maybe because they're too obvious to point out. Educate yourself. Find a way out of the cultural desert being handed to you by the entertainment industry and expend some brain cells on things like environmental issues, financial reform, foreign policy and jobs outsourcing. You'll find more conflict between parents and the childless than you will between establishment democrats and republicans, if you only look beyond the horseshit. That's my solution, anyway, but I suspect Taibbi would agree. Otherwise, well, Taibbi, let's take this outside, shall we?(less)

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Feb 13, 2013 The Hermit's rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

A hilarious field report of our awakened yet lost American mindset since 9/11… and how a fu**ed up Congress really works in the interests of lobbyists and politicians-for-personal-profit.

“In all of this it seemed to me that what we were living through was the last stage of the American empire. Historians consistently describe similar phenomena in the past centuries of human experience. When the Bolsheviks finally broke through the gates of the Winter Palace, they discovered tsarists inside obses...more A hilarious field report of our awakened yet lost American mindset since 9/11… and how a fu**ed up Congress really works in the interests of lobbyists and politicians-for-personal-profit.

“In all of this it seemed to me that what we were living through was the last stage of the American empire. Historians consistently describe similar phenomena in the past centuries of human experience. When the Bolsheviks finally broke through the gates of the Winter Palace, they discovered tsarists inside obsessed with tarot cards; when the barbarians finally stormed Rome in the last days, they found the upper class paralyzed by lethargy and inaction addicted to the ramblings of fortune-tellers. This, too, seemed to be the fate of America, viciously attacked by a serious enemy but unable to grasp the significance of this attack, instead fleeing for consolation to the various corners of its own vast media landscape, in particular seeking solace in the Internet, an escapist paradise for the informationally overwhelmed.

Trained for decades to be little more than good consumers, we had become a nation of reality shoppers, mixing and matching news items to fit our own self-created identities, rejoicing in the idea that reality was not absolute but a choice, something we select to fit our own conception not of the world but of ourselves.”

“The similarities between both of these groups were striking and should be clear to anyone who reads this book. Both groups were and are defined primarily by an unshakable belief in the inhumanity of their enemies on the other side; the Christians seldom distinguished between Islamic terrorism and say, Al Gore-style environmentalism, while the Truthers easily believed that reporters for the Washington Post, the president, and the front-line operators of NORAD were equally capable of murdering masses of ordinary New York financial-sector employees. Abandoned by the political center, both groups ascribed unblinkingly to a militant, us-against-them worldview, where only their own could be trusted. What made them distinctly American was that, while actually the victims of an obvious, unhidden conspiracy of political power, they chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary. At a time when the country desperately needed its citizens to man up and seize control of their common destiny, they instead crawl into alleys and feverishly jacked themselves off in frenzies of panicked narcissism. Time and again durring the research for this book, I encountered people who acted not like engaged citizens looking for solutions to real problems, but like frightened adolescents, unaccustomed to the burdens of political power, who saw in the vacuum of governmental competence an opportunity not to take control of their lives, but to step in to replace the buffoon acts above with buffoon acts of their own. They made elaborate speeches to no one in particular as though cameras were on them, they dressed in Washington and Jefferson costumes, they primped and preened like they were revolutionaries, modern-day Patrick Henrys and Thomas Paines. And they got nothing done.”

The author’s undercover field report from a ridiculous southern baptist weekend bootcamp where demons are exorcised from various weak-minded middleclass idiots with low self-esteem:

The Longest Three Days of My Life

http://books.google.com/books?id=pv2....(less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Taibbi's book is thoroughly engaging. You get a strong sense of the person behind the journalism and his unbroken sense of anger at corruption and those who turn their faces from it. An excellent, fluid writer - if not quite as brilliant as the Twain/Wolfe/Thompson tradition from which he comes - he immerses you in the world of American fundamentalists, and their 911 truthist counterparts enough to gain extra insight into their ways of thinking.

He builds a convincing case that these people are...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Aaron Arnold rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, read-in-2009

Are we a society, or a sorry collection of deluded, implacably antagonistic interest groups? Is America still a nation of progress, or are we doomed to repeat the Soviet Union's slow decaying rot due to our inability to directly engage the unpleasant reality of our completely dysfunctional culture? Taibbi is easily my favorite journalist working now because he matches the most awesome, effortless prose since Hunter S Thompson (whose position at Rolling Stone Taibbi now fills) with the kind of in...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am late to reading this book - its moment is past. Still I enjoyed it. Taibbi writes with a vengeance, noting the loss of democracy to interests and the average Americans construction of narratives to give meaning to life. He looks at two such narratives - provided by Christian Zionist, pentecostal fundamentalist John Hagee's San Antonio church (where Taibbi immerses himself in the culture as a participant) and the 911 Truth Squad (for some fair and balancing with left wing nuts, who he follo...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: culture, current-events, nonfiction, politics, religion, society

There is an essential flaw in human nature that makes us think we're special. It used to make us think that we were literally the center of the universe, which it turns out we aren't. It makes us think that we're all going to grow up to be movie stars and astronauts, which we aren't; our children are all brilliant and well-behaved, which they aren't; and that God is on our side, which It isn't.

Oddly enough, though, there is one place where this boundless optimism is flipped on its head. Every ge...more

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May 24, 2011 Schnaucl rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, may, non-fiction, read_2011

Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi's writing.

Having said that, I thought the introduction to the book was misleading. The introduction makes it sound like Congress, the military, 9/11 truthers and member's of Hagee's church will be given equal time when it's mostly about the church with the truthers and Congress getting a couple chapters each while the military only gets one. The introduction also makes it sound like the soldiers he was embedded with freaked out when there was an...more Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi's writing.

Having said that, I thought the introduction to the book was misleading. The introduction makes it sound like Congress, the military, 9/11 truthers and member's of Hagee's church will be given equal time when it's mostly about the church with the truthers and Congress getting a couple chapters each while the military only gets one. The introduction also makes it sound like the soldiers he was embedded with freaked out when there was an explosion near the police station they were in whereas the chapter that actually details the incident portrays them as bored and possibly uninterested in what's going on outside the door. I wish he'd spent a little more time on the Iraqi police. The US soldiers say the Iraqi police are too scared to go investigate, and that may be true, but we have to take their word for it since Taibbi doesn't describe their reaction.

I'm not a religious person. The vast majority of my friends and family are not religious or spiritual people. However, I'm troubled by his reporting on Hagee's church. There doesn't seem to be a single sane, non broken person that belongs to the church and with a group that size I find it awfully hard to believe. I don't doubt that there are a great number of incredibly lonely and/or troubled people who turn to the church but I do question that everyone he comes into contact with fits one of those categories. While it's true the religious friends I have are about two decades younger than most of the people Taibbi comes into contact with, they're sane, rational people who aren't particularly lonely or troubled. They're just following the faith they grew up in. I don't expect them to become broken or lonely in their 40's or 50's just because they're religious. I also grant that I live in the least churched part of the country so the people surrounding the religious people I know are somewhat different. It just seems like his cynicism and prejudgment of these people may have clouded his opinion.

I did find it interesting when he talked about how easy it was (eventually) to slip into that Christian persona and just stop thinking critically. I'm sure there is a sort of group think mentality that can take place when everyone is focused on the same thing for large amounts of time.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of the truthers. I guess I'd want to exactly what language was used for the polls. If the question was is the government hiding something about 9/11 I'd probably say yes because I think the government probably holds stuff back about a variety of things. That's not the same thing as believing that the Bush administration made or allowed 9/11 to happen. I'm uneasy with the portrayal of the truthers as the mainstream left the same way I'm uneasy with the portrayal of the tea party members as the mainstream right.

As for Congress, I'm always left feeling even more cynical and disenfranchised after reading Taibbi's book. Which isn't to say he's wrong. I'm quite sure he's right. I was greatly troubled (but not surprised) by how entwined the Obama campaign was with political activists. The suggestion that activists should check with them before publicly criticized them is ludicrous but it's even worse that clearly many activist groups did exactly that. When even the activists are working on behalf of politicians who is left to represent the people?

It was somewhat amusing to read about a time when Taibbi and the rest of the press thought Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani would be the nominees.

In the end, more than ever I wish someone would do a What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America for the left. Maybe even Thomas Frank, although I think he generally critiques the right. I think there are some hard truths that we need to hear. Taibbi does critique the left but mostly in passing rather than as the focal point for an entire book. I'd certainly read his critique if he'd write it.(less)

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Mar 04, 2011 Patrick Gibson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: truth_sort-of

First, let me say, I love this guy. Humorous, intelligent, acerbic, gutsy, and a bunch of other adjectives I can’t think of right now. Whenever he appears on Bill Mahar I know it’s going to be interesting. He’s a man unafraid to swear.

In this book (he has a new one, I am about to read):

Tabbi spent time with Matthew Hagee's Cornerstone Church, slowly going through the indoctrination process. He also spent some time with a 9/11 conspiracy group, who believe the US government is responsible, direc...more

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Aug 02, 2010 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

The case that Taibbi makes in this book is that our nationalpoliticians have, quite deliberately and in their own self-interest, corrupted the process of government to such an extentthat, not only has it lost any characteristics of arepresentative democracy responsive to the needs of the people,it can -- more importantly in his and our context -- no longer be described using the tools of rationality. Small wonder, then,that the response of many of the effectively disenfranchisedpopulation is to...more
The case that Taibbi makes in this book is that our national politicians have, quite deliberately and in their own self-interest, corrupted the process of government to such an extent that, not only has it lost any characteristics of a representative democracy responsive to the needs of the people, it can -- more importantly in his and our context -- no longer be described using the tools of rationality. Small wonder, then, that the response of many of the effectively disenfranchised population is to resort to equal irrationality. When the George W. Bush aide famously said that, in effect, we make our own reality now, he was -- in the unwitting fashion of the terminally stupid -- opening the floodgates for anyone to make their own reality. And countless US citizens took him at his word and did exactly that.

Taibbi thus spends about half his time observing the craziness being perpetrated by politicians of all stripes as they go through the motions -- if they bother even doing that -- of democratic government (Rep. Joe Barton gets plenty of attention as exemplar of the completely bought-out Congresscritter who no longer even troubles to produce convincing lies as to his status and purposes), and about the other half reporting on his successful infiltration of the fundamentalist Cornerstone Church in Texas, part of the John Hagee Ministries; there were times when I was hard-pressed to know if a particular passage was describing Barton or Hagee. It was largely because of his experiences among the Fundies that Taibbi developed the thesis noted above. For a man of Taibbi's fearsome reputation and savage ability with words, he is surprisingly sympathetic toward the friends he made among the devout; although they may on occasion subscribe to philosophies that are hateful, vicious and bigoted, in reality they are far more victim than aggressor, having been fed with an indoctrinating concentration of misinformation and bogus reasoning, and having taken a decision to use obedience to authority rather than rational thinking as their cognitive modus operandi. It is pointless even thinking to explain to such people that what they are being told about matters like climate change, the invasion of Iraq and evolution is hogwash, because if you put the evidence plain-as-day in front of them you would simply be offering, in terms of the cognitive process they've chosen to adopt, an irrelevance: if Pastor Hagee has said one thing this means God has said it, so the mere truth is impotent.

Taibbi also points out the importance of self-interest among the faithful. He recounts how, on occasion, Hagee or a catspaw try to get across the church's political message du jour, that Israel must be supported and Iran detested; each time the flock applaud politely but without conviction, clearly wanting to get back to the good stuff about personal damnation, cursing, self-bolstering hatred of liberals or gays, individual salvation, and the notion that God is taking a very special personal interest in YOU.

It would be equally pointless, Taibbi indicates, to try to persuade any of the Cornerstone Church devoted that the philosophy they've been told is Christianity has absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of Christ as recorded in the Gospels:

From here Hagee went into a long spiel about the difference between the Christ of the Gospels and the Christ of Revelation. This is an important point for people who are not fundamentalist Christians and want to understand them. The Gospels Christ is basically a long-haired touchy-feely hippie who goes around being nice to people. The Christ of Revelations is built like The Rock and roams the universe braining sinners with lead pipes. Fundamentalists clearly prefer the Revelation Christ. (p136)

It doesn't take much guesswork to realize that The Great Derangement is often extraordinarily funny, yet often astonishingly depressing; unless there's some kind of root-and-branch re-evaluation, and pretty goddam soon, our distance up the fabled creek is likely to be too great for any chance of return. And, writing as he was in the early days of the 2008 electoral cycle with the primaries still underway, Taibbi shows remarkably prescience, as for example about the famed hopy-changey Democratic Revolution changing in fact very little, like all the other changes of government there've been in the past three decades or more: even the few scraps that have been cast down to us from the masters' table, like healthcare reform, have been so adulterated by special interests operating among corrupt lawmakers as to be only slightly better than worthless.
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Mar 14, 2010 Todd rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who liked "Deer Hunting With Jesus"

I have been a fan of Matt Taibbi's since I first encountered him on theexile.ru. Since his Lennon/McCartney-like break with Mark Ames he has been doing some fantastic reporting, notably his columns about the financial crisis for Rolling Stone.

In his books and articles, dumb people are either figures of fun to be mocked mercilessly or people to be pitied and sometimes held up as symptoms of what is wrong with America. And smart people have their words translated into "what they really mean." All...more I have been a fan of Matt Taibbi's since I first encountered him on theexile.ru. Since his Lennon/McCartney-like break with Mark Ames he has been doing some fantastic reporting, notably his columns about the financial crisis for Rolling Stone.

In his books and articles, dumb people are either figures of fun to be mocked mercilessly or people to be pitied and sometimes held up as symptoms of what is wrong with America. And smart people have their words translated into "what they really mean." All of this is perfectly okay with me, though I wonder how much of this is because I agree with pretty much all of his observations.

Mr. Taibbi doesn't do such a great job explaining the main thesis of the book -- maybe because it's so obvious to him -- so I'll state it outright: (He even admits this in an afterword for the paperback version.) The majority of America have been abandoned by their political parties, and in their absence they have cobbled together their own deranged and demented view of the world -- the evangelical, End Times churches on the right and the 9-11 Truth movement on the left.

So for the Right to vote Democratic they would have to get past their obvious pact with the devil. And for the Left to vote Republican they would have to ignore the small matter of their international conspiracy to murder thousands of fellow Americans on 9/11. And while these knuckleheads are busy demonizing each other, Congress is systematically channeling their money into special interests via earmarks in special rules meetings and emergency sessions.

In one excellent passage, Mr. Taibbi shows how after the midterm elections of 2006 the Democrats used the threat of a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq to get a bunch of pork passed instead of the other way around. It ends with this great quote: "Washington politicians basically view the People as a capricious and dangerous enemy, a dumb mob whose only interesting quality happens to be their power to take away politicians' jobs."

There are tons of great quotes in this book. I kept dog-earing pages in case I ever wanted to go back and steal from them later. Here's just one example:

"""The message of all of this was that Americans were now supposed to make their own sense of the world. There was no dependable authority left to turn to, no life raft in the increasingly perilous informational sea. This coincided with an age when Americans now needed to understand more of the world than ever before. A factory worker in suburban Ohio now needed to understand the cultures of places like Bangalore and Beijing if he wanted to know why he'd lost his job. Which, incidentally, he probably had. Now broke, or under severe financial pressure, with no community leaders, no community, no news he can trust, Joe American has to turn on the Internet and tell himself a story that makes sense to him."""

The book begins by wondering what Osama bin Laden might be thinking about post-9/11 America. He pulls off the crime of the century and no one is willing to give him credit: Bush tells America to take vacations and buy Chevys. On the right Christians understand that the attack was caused by America's acquiescence in the effort to allow homosexuals to marry. And of course the Wire-watching, NPR-listening left understands that it was really Bush who masterminded the whole thing using Saudi patsies to start a war with the non-religious state of Iraq. Then Bush appears on the television again to tell us we were attacked because "they" hate our freedoms. Meanwhile Congress bans French fries from their cafeteria. Maybe the reason we haven't been attacked since is that there's no point to it.

The majority of the book is taken up with Mr. Taibbi's undercover infiltration of a mega-church in Texas, which is both mean and hilarious. The section where he infiltrates the 9-11 Truthers is much shorter, mainly because they tend to spit when they talk. But he doesn't leave them before making the spot on observation that the Truthers flatter themselves into thinking the government fears them enough that they would go to such trouble in deceiving them.

The weird thing about this book, which was published in 2008 and probably written at least partly in 2007, is that it seems so dated. Sarah Palin makes a brief appearance at the end. It's a big deal in the book when Cindy Sheehan, whom I had completely forgotten about, joins the peace movement because of attacks from the Democratic party. Reading this book puts the Tea Party movement in a perspective that actually makes sense. In fact it should be required reading for those guys.
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Sep 02, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

The basic premise of The Great Derangement is that as Americans, we have no real leadership. We are so used to being lied to and screwed over that in essence, we are forced to create our own reality to deal with it. Matt Taibbi hilariously explores this world of derangement.
After he explains just how mind-numbingly pointless most sessions of Congress are--one bill “debated” is over whether or not to name a post office after Ava Gardner--he gets into how the Government is really run. The real bus...more

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Mar 03, 2011 Rob Granniss rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my second Matt Taibbi book and I was as entertained as I was with Griftopia. He takes both the religious right/fundamentalists in Texas to task by going undercover and reporting what happens at all weekend seminars and what's preached in the church. At the same time he goes back and forth to DC and NY, sitting in the congressional press pit, and getting into arguments with 9-11 Truthers, whom he enraged with a throw away ad hominem line in one of his pieces for Rolling Stone. As disturbi...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Patrick Sprunger rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: policy-socioliogy-economics, read-in-2012

Most authors have a favorite Word, a by the wayside piece of arcana they drop into everything they publish.* Others repeat a trademark Word like a mantra.** Matt Taibbi's Word is "masturbatory." Masturbatory is a descriptive word, so filled with connotation that it drives home the point that it's used critically; there can be no mistaking the author's intent. But it is only an "awakening" Word for a small group of highly suggestable readers - most of whom are seniors in high school or freshmen i...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars

First of all, this book is wickedly funny. The heaping helpings of liberal derision that Taibbi spreads around like so much hateful cream cheese on the bagel of Americana while tasty to ingest ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth. While I share many of his worldviews especially regarding the 911 Truthers and the failures of our legislative branch of government, I have a hard time watching him do a hatchet job on individual people who naively allowed him entry into their worlds, however flawed...more First of all, this book is wickedly funny. The heaping helpings of liberal derision that Taibbi spreads around like so much hateful cream cheese on the bagel of Americana while tasty to ingest ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth. While I share many of his worldviews especially regarding the 911 Truthers and the failures of our legislative branch of government, I have a hard time watching him do a hatchet job on individual people who naively allowed him entry into their worlds, however flawed and self-serving those worlds might be. When Taibbi calls these movements, specifically evangelical Christianity and 911 truth, the masturbatory fantasies of an alienated people, I don't have too much of a problem with it. But when he singles out individuals within the movements and attacks them solely on the basis of believing things which cannot be whole-heartedly supported by an east-coast education, he comes off as excessively mean and self-serving. Ultimately, it seems that Taibbi isn't scared of commitment, but rather of conviction of any sort. So much so that he can't tell anymore when it is real. So, rather than allow himself to get caught up in it, he would rather attack it all in the name of intellectual skepticism thus becoming guilty of the very crimes he harangues the Truthers and the Jesus-freaks. That these people would lash out at communities which do not support their worldviews is fair to say. To subject himself to that same scrutiny is something that Taibbi doesn't want to do apparently, because under the microscope he's essentially saying the same exact thing, "think like I do, or you're (stupid, corrupt, going to hell) fill in the blank".

I don't want to sound like I didn't like the book, because I did. I thought it was smart, witty and awfully cynical sometimes in a good way. But in the end, the highlight was the conversation between the author and a close friend revealing the true nature of Taibbi's discourse, that of the "establishment pseudo hipster". Granted, a really insightful and sharp-witted pseudo hipster. Maybe once he finds something that he can believe in and invest himself in, he'll really write something worthwhile, or rather a little more emotionally honest. I'll be waiting, because the flip side is still awfully entertaining and there are worse things to be than a lefty Christopher Buckley.(less)

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Apr 24, 2009 Marc rated it 3 of 5 stars

Taibbi enters interesting journalistic territory exploring the inner mechanisms of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Congress, and a southern Evangelical church. While the anecdotes of extremism prove fertile fodder for a cynic like Taibbi and provide for some humorous and mind boggling moments, the author seems to stretch too far in trying to tie these subcultures together to form a single theory: Extremism in America is the direct reaction of a disenfranchised public to an ineffective and corrupt polit...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Ken Erickson added it

Matt Taibi is the most insightful and humorous political commentator alive today. This book totally nails the state of American politics and the common psychological/sociological origins of both left & right.

The ultimately depressing reality of American politics is that system is hopelessly broken; his humor ultimately helps soften the blow of this reality. Whether you're left or right Matt Taibi's writing is going to be hard to face, but if you can take a step back and let your delusions g...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Briana rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of Matt Taibbi's from some of his Rolling Stone coverage during the election (especially his piece about deranged Hillary supporters) and I think I would have rather read a collection of those pieces instead. The coverage of Congress was interesting (if depressing) but the main topics of the book, Christian fundamentalists obsessed with the End Times and 9-11 Truthers, covered ground I've read about before. I thought that Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh did a better, and more sympat...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Benny rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed it, it makes me want to read more stuff by Taibbi. He does a good job explaining what people should clearly be mad about while maintaining a sense of humor. A very thorough explanation of how congress works, a fact check with 9/11 truthers, and a first hand experience with John Hagee's Cornerstone Church. I will admit there is a chance that Congress is for the people, John Hagee knows the truth, and/or the Truthers know the truth; Taibbi's voice sounds less crooked than all of them. It...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars

A glowing appeal for sanity in a country driven mad by ineffective, corrupt and downright criminal government. Taibbi spends time with extremists from both the Left (911 Truth Movement activists) and Right (Pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX) to get a bead on what has driven them to their respective extremes.

Taibbi, with his biting no-bullshit observations honed on his beat as Rolling Stone magazine's main "National Affairs" correspondent, exposes the weaknesses on both si...more

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Dec 08, 2010 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow. A VERY candid look at our political process, Evangelical Christianity and fringe groups like the 9/11 Truthers through the eyes of Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi.

This volume is definitely NSFC (not safe for Church) as it is riddled with profanity and also ridicules the John Hagee ministry and how "conversions" happen. Taibbi goes undercover in the Church and experiences what happens when a new convert joins the Church. While Hagee's ministry is not entirely representative of Evangelical...more

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Sep 08, 2009 John Caneday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

This is a fascinating book. Taibbi looks at different aspects of our culture and concludes that America has lost its faith in our political parties and the media that supports them so loudly. This loss of faith has resulted in those in the right to move toward Christian fanaticism, and those on the left to bizarre conspiracy theories about the government's involvement in 9/11.

He recognizes the rightness in abandoning the political and media buffoonery. But the antidotes are as bad as the disease...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, social-science

Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone, draws on two major manifestations of the "great derangement" in the U.S.: on the right, the Christian End-Times movement, and on the left, the 9/11 "Truthers." He writes: "...Screwed by a corrupt ruling class, the Population at Large rebelled by ramming itself into twin brick walls of idiocy. It was hard to say what was more absurd, the preposterous corruption of our politicians or the utterly irrational response of the people they betrayed." His assessment of...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

If it weren't so grim, Taibbi's book would be perfect. I went in expecting a thorough shredding of the modern dominionist movement, and while there are certainly some damning passages, the book's emphasis is more nuanced. Taibbi studies three worlds in turn: the deep-texas congregation of political firebrand/megachurch preacher John Haggee, the unhinged world of Bush-hating 9/11 Truthers, and the cynical swamp of day-to-day Congressional governance.

Taibbi's premise is that as Democrats and Repub...more

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title link	preview: The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire
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The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire

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