Heritage Foundation Crazy Board

Nelson seeks to document the connections between "the manpower and media of the Christian right with the finances of Western plutocrats and the strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives." Many of these connections, she writes, were made possible through the CNP, whose members have included such familiar names as Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, the Christian Coallition's first executive director Ralph Reed and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

Nelson traces the group from its founding in 1981 "by a small group of archconservatives who realized that the tides of history had turned against them" — specifically, activist Morton Blackwell, commentator Paul Weyrich and direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie. (Other founding members included Phyllis Schlafly and Left Behind author Tim LaHaye.) The CNP's structure, Nelson writes, was similar to a group called the Council on Foreign Relations (of which Nelson herself is a member) — like that group, the CNP organized as a tax-exempt educational institution, although it was "designed to serve as the engine for a radical political agenda."

The CNP soon realized it could reach prospective voters through the media that many of its members owned. That included the radio broadcasting company Salem Media Group, co-founded by CNP members Stuart W. Epperson and Edward G. Atsinger; and would later include online publications like the Daily Caller. The programming of these various outlets, Nelson writes, "is not uniform, but it harmonizes."