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"It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America"--… (more)
To the extent that Thomas Frank doesn't scruple to gore sacred cows, He is the H.L. Mencken of our time. I particularly appreciate his criticism of the boundless optimism--and therefore boundless myopia--of the tech sector of our culture and economy. Maybe, just maybe, apps really haven't made out lives all that much better. To put it another way, the Uber app has mades its authors' lives better, but not the lives of the taxi drivers whose livelihoods it has disrupted and whom it may well impoverish.
Like Mencken, Mr. Frank is a superb stylist. I just wish he--and the rest of the world--would refrain from using the noun "reference" as a verb.
This is my 2nd Thomas Frank book and I'm just as blown away that it's equally enjoyable as the 1st of his I read, "The People, No." I sometimes make notations or mark pages that really stand out and interest me but it's hard with both of his books that I've read because I find myself wanting to highlight almost every single word, to where it becomes pointless since most everything in the entire book is marked for me to come back to. Easy to read and T. Frank is such a good writer and story teller. 5 stars!!! ( )
This is my 2nd Thomas Frank book and I'm just as blown away that it's equally enjoyable as the 1st of his I read, "The People, No." I sometimes make notations or mark pages that really stand out and interest me but it's hard with both of his books that I've read because I find myself wanting to highlight almost every single word, to where it becomes pointless since most everything in the entire book is marked for me to come back to. Easy to read and T. Frank is such a good writer and story teller. 5 stars!!! ( )
Whether one agrees with liberalism and progressivism or not, there's little doubt that the Democratic Party of the last few decades has failed to deliver either. Frank pulls no punches in this searing indictment of the party and how it has gone from being the party of the people to desperately distancing itself from the New Deal and simultaneously courting various minority groups--blacks, gays, etc.--while enacting policies that frequently wrought disaster upon them (e.g., Clinton's welfare reform), to say nothing of the people as a while (say, the repeal of Dodd-Frank). ( )
Behind all of this nasty fun is a serious political critique. Echoing the historian Lily Geismer, Frank argues that the Democratic Party — once “the Party of the People” — now caters to the interests of a “professional-managerial class” consisting of lawyers, doctors, professors, scientists, programmers, even investment bankers. These affluent city dwellers and suburbanites believe firmly in meritocracy and individual opportunity, but shun the kind of social policies that once gave a real leg up to the working class. In the book, Frank points to the Democrats’ neglect of organized labor and support for Nafta as examples of this sensibility, in which “you get what you deserve, and what you deserve is defined by how you did in school.” [...] Current approaches aren’t working — and unless something dramatic happens, Americans are heading for a society in which a tiny elite controls most of the wealth, resources and decision-making power.
It is doubtless important to the good of nations that those who govern have virtues or talents; but what is perhaps still more important to them is that those who govern do not have interests contrary to the mass of the governed; for in that case the virtues could become almost useless and the talents fatal.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (tranlasted by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop)
McGeorge Bundy, then, was the finest example of a special elite, a certain breed of men whose continuity is among themselves. They are linked to one another rather than to the country; in their minds they become responsible for the country but not responsive to it.
-- David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 1972
Dedication
First words
There are consequences to excessive hope, just as there are to other forms of intemperance. (Introduction)
Let us put the question bluntly.
Quotations
What I am suggesting is that their inability to address the social question is not accidental. The current leaders of the Democratic Party know their form of liberalism is somehow related to the good fortune of the top 10 percent. Inequality, in other words, is a reflection of who they are. It goes to the very heart of their self-understanding. (Introduction)
What was shocking about all this was to realize that Obama believed these cliches. Consensus, bipartisanship, the "center": those were the things that this admirable and intelligent man was serious about -- the kind of stale empty verbiage favored by Beltway charlatans on the Sunday talk shows. The other things Obama used to say -- like when he connected deregulation, corruption, and income inequality in his Cooper Union speech in 2008 -- those things were just to reel in the suckers. The suckers being the people who could hear the pillars of their middle-class world snapping. The suckers being the people who could see that the system was crumbling and thought maybe we ought to do something about it. (Introduction)
Last words
The course of the party and the course of the country can both be changed, but only after we understand that the problem is us.
"It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America"--
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From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats?
It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.
But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.
With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America. [retrieved 9/24/2016 from Amazon.com]
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Like Mencken, Mr. Frank is a superb stylist. I just wish he--and the rest of the world--would refrain from using the noun "reference" as a verb.