This is the most fun I've had with a history book in ages. Mr. Morone traces the oscillation between religion as a democratizing tendency and religion as a method of social control for the elites.
The Democrats anti-populist rhetoric about the people in pickup trucks in red states is actually part of a long standing elite/enlightenment critique of the more untempered varieties of evangelical religious expression.
Republicans have so effectively captured populist rhetoric to accomplish elitist goals in large part because they speak the language of religion and Democrats don't. Morone makes the point that as far back as the Puritans, religion was about who belonged and who didn't. A counter current (evident in the Great Awakenings) was religion as a leveling and democratizing force. The Republicans have put together a winning formula of talking like they are from the democratizing version of Christianity and also playing on fears of the "other" whether it be Willie Horton, Mexican immigrants or gay people.
In my angrier moments I think that the solution might be for Democrats to take back the moral high ground--to point out that the Republicans are hypocrites who win elections by encouraging Americans to hate their fellow citizens. They've turned good Christian people into warmongers and hateful people. I'm pretty sure that if there is a hell, a special level has been reserved for GW and his cronies. But that may be a trap...Somehow when I think thoughts like that I really feel that I'm living George W. Bush's America.
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