What holds the Republican Right together?

There appears to be an ongoing power struggle between the Old Guard/Eastern/Oil(TX) Establishment and the New Right (of which the NeoCons are the vanguard). There are other factions as well. Part of the split is over the Middle East, with the Oil Establishment siding with their Arab business partners, and the NeoCons being Pro-Israel. When it came to Iraq, both wanted to take out Hussein -- it was over the method of his removal that they disagreed. The Easterners/Oil Barons (such as Bush Sr. and James Baker) wanted to do it the Cold War way, with a US-engineered coup. But the Neocons prevailed, and got their War.

The New Right (which includes the Christian Right)  seems more frightening, because among other things, they screw with Reality. They are very Orwellian with their propaganda techniques. They have spent the past three decades building a huge media infrastructure. And they have the greatest control over all three branches of government, although the Old Guard/Easterners may be dominating the White House right now (the Neocons clearly have been in charge most of the time, especially since Sept. 11).

John Birchers of the Right and, ironically, many Leftists, tend to obsess over the (Eastern Establishment) Trilateral Commission/Bilderberger Group/Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Sure, these groups plot and scheme (mainly over how to pillage and plunder other countries, with the help of the WTO, the CIA, etc), but the New Right think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for a New American Century and the Federalist Society are the ones that have effected the massive shift in America towards an authoritarian, rightwing state.

Actually the John Birch Society forms the original core of the New Right. It was out of fear of the JBS's enemy -- the Eastern Establishment -- that the New Right was created, especially after Nixon called for the creation of "our own counter-establishment." The key New Right organization, the Council for National Policy, was formed as the New Right's answer to their historical boogeyman, the Council on Foreign Relations.

Nowadays, rather than the Rockefellers, Carnegies, CFR, Trilateral, etc, the Eastern Establishment is better emblemized by the Carlyle Group.

The deep-pocketed financial backers of the New Right include Richard Mellon Scaife (who financed the attempted overthrow of Clinton, read or rent "The Hunting of the President"), the Coors family (key reference, "The Coors Connection" by Russ Bellant), the Nobles, the Kochs, the Kriebles, the Waltons (of Wal-Mart), Steve Forbes, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bradley Foundation... and many others, including Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Many of them sit on the board of the Heritage Foundation, which is the king New Right think tank (along with Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation and AEI).

The Bush Family work both sides of the fence. Being traditionally from the Eastern/Oil Establishment, Bush Sr. alienated the New Right/Christian Right by excluding them in many ways from his White House. But Jeb helped "build coalitions," especially by being on the board of the Heritage Foundation. (Reagan "built coalitions" in the opposite way -- he was the first major candidate backed by the New Right. But he added Bush Sr. as his running mate to get the Eastern Establishment on board.)

Dubya/Rove/Cheney have embraced the New Right and the Neocons. Cheney is sort of a straddler, having worked for AEI, as well as being CEO of Halliburton. (This is true of Condi too, having been a Chevron exec, and also on the staff of the [New Right] Hoover Institution. Rumsfeld may be more of a Neocon, like Wolfowitz and Perle.)

To begin to understand the Bush Family and their criminal operations, especially their pattern of arming "friends" and then making them "enemies" -- it's important to look at Iran-contra, Contra-crack, Noriega, Iraqgate (Reagan-Bush arming and financing Saddam), BCCI (CIA/Saudi financing of the Mujahideen), the October Surprise, the S & L lootings... Investigative journalist Danny Casolaro called this "The Octopus", before he met his untimely demise. The Bush family's part in the "War on Drugs" is just another example of how they work both sides, and rake in the profits. Of course, this pattern of double-dealing goes way back -- at least to Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker's financing of the Nazi war machine.

Here are several key articles:

Philanthropists at War

The Origins of the Overclass

America's Matrix

Of course, the lines are never clearly demarcated. This is just a very rough sketch of the overall establishment. Richard Perle, one of Neocon leaders, does business with the Saudis and other Arab business leaders. Sometimes  business deals require setting aside ideological differences. And of course there is the  amoral (or is he immoral?) and disturbed Pat Robertson, who while putting himself forth as a leader of the Christian Right, gets into bed with the Oil Barons. Robertson also has had interests in diamond mines in Zaire and gold mines in Liberia -- with the help of those countries' dictators.