Taibbi, I think, genuinely tries to understand the socio-cultural factors that lead people to join "fringe" groups like born-again christians and 9/11 truthers. Honestly, dude has 1000x more patience with them than I would ever have... but the highlight of the book is the contrast of these "conspiracy theories" with the actual ineptitude of our political leaders to actually represent their constituents. Basically, you come away thinking like "these people (truthers/born-again people) give our leaders wayyyy too much credit, if they actually think congressmen/senators have the capacity to pull of some shit like that)". I highly recommend it, you can read it in like one day too.