Know Your Enemy17 Jun 2023

The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson [TEASER]

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Last week, televangelist, businessman, conspiracy theorist, and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson died at the age of 93. Though mostly known today for his deranged comments about homosexuality, abortion, feminism, and other "sins" causing everything from natural disasters to 9-11, Robertson had a major influence on the evolution of the Republican Party and the religious right. Where did Robertson come from, and what was distinctive about Robertson's theological and political views? What were the innovations of the Christian Coalition, the group he founded in 1987, in organizing conservative believers for the GOP? How did he respond to the end of the Cold War and adapt his message for the 1990s and the supposed advent of a "New World Order"?

In this episode, Matt and Sam take up these questions and more, plus offer a discussion of James G. Watt, Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, who died in late May. An evangelical Christian known for railing against the Beach Boys, his offensive comments about Native Americans and others, and using the supposed imminent return of Christ to justify destroying the environment.

Sources:

Pat Robertson obituaries: NYT, Washington Post

James G. Watt obituaries: NYT, Washington Post

Daniel Schlozman, When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (2016)

Jacob Heilbrunn, "His Anti-Semitic Sources," New York Review of Books, April 20, 1995

Pat Robertson, The New World Order (1991)

James Conaway, "James Watt, In the Right with the Lord," Washington Post, April 27, 1983

John Taylor "Pat Robertson’s God, Inc." Esquire, Nov 1994.

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