The 15% Solution

by Steven Jonas, Sarah Edgar (Illustrator)

Reminiscent of It Can Happen Here and The Iron Heel, the novel by Steven Jonas, The 15% Solution, looks into the future to fix the present, warning us eloquently about the dangers of religious fascism in America—a threat at present firmly encapsulated in the new Republican Party. The author visualizes a gradual takeover of the American government by Christian zealots and their prompt annihilation of the American Constitution, all perfectly prefigured in these fanatics’ own declarations. A number of American sociologists, historians and journalists have argued that American Christofascism is an old phenomenon in the United States, a nation born out of transplanted religious fervor. Chris Hedges, among others, has persuasively shown that religious authoritarianism first reared its head during the Great Depression, suggesting that the tendency is latent in American culture, and, like a dormant virus, can be detonated by profound social dislocations. In Steven Jonas’ view, the demise of what remains of American democracy is a long announced political cataclysm, but, inexplicably, the alarms continue to fall on deaf ears. Packaged as fiction, this volume is a serious new effort to shake the population out of its lethargy before time for effective action runs out.

583 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

Dr. Steven Jonas is Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, and the Program in Public Health, at Stony Brook University. He served at Stony Brook Medicine for 43 years, 1971-2014. He has published 17 books on topics ranging from public health textbooks to sports medicine, diet, and triathlon books.