hardcover, 305 pages
English language
Published Sept. 5, 2016 by Henry Holt and Company.
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 …
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.
Well written, but by this point most of his points are already familiar.
I recently read a rant by a Trump supporter in which he gives the following two arguments. First, he complains that the left uses an unfair tactic of attacking the right by calling them out for not living up to their principles. It's unfair, because those principles are values. They are ideals which are aimed for and even if fallen short of remain their goals. Liberals, being essentially valueless/relativists/atheists, are immune from this kind of attack.
His second point is that Trump has this same sort of immunity but he will further rightist values. He gets away with being racist and sexist and fascist and narcissistic and a liar which frees him up to do what needs to be done. He doesn't need to prove himself worthy with principles because he already knows he is better than the left and will proceed with doing the work.
This argument exists in …
I recently read a rant by a Trump supporter in which he gives the following two arguments. First, he complains that the left uses an unfair tactic of attacking the right by calling them out for not living up to their principles. It's unfair, because those principles are values. They are ideals which are aimed for and even if fallen short of remain their goals. Liberals, being essentially valueless/relativists/atheists, are immune from this kind of attack.
His second point is that Trump has this same sort of immunity but he will further rightist values. He gets away with being racist and sexist and fascist and narcissistic and a liar which frees him up to do what needs to be done. He doesn't need to prove himself worthy with principles because he already knows he is better than the left and will proceed with doing the work.
This argument exists in the context of a world of good guys and bad guys, as does the book under discussion. The Democrats were once the good guys. As recently as the FDR presidency they were willing to take bold steps to fix a failing economy brought on by extreme income inequality. Now they have become the bad guys, leaving the Republicans as the even worse guys. It was Bill Clinton who ended Welfare (and Hillary campaigned for passage of the necessary laws). Similarly for the buildup of the prison system, the 3 strikes laws, the "trade" deals. They have abandoned the working class, which has a large intersection with the middle class, to rally around the professional class. Obama fares slightly better but still bailed out Wall Street, pushed for TPP, settled for less of health care program than he could get, etc.
Now it's the left not living up to their principles, but Frank says, with the exception of rhetoric in the service of getting votes, these are no longer their principles at all. The new principles are excellence and education and meritocracy and entrepreneurship. The two party system is now the deserving rich versus the undeserving rich. The poor are on their own now.
The Democrats still gives lip service to its (former) principles but in practice the working class is ignored. The economy, which has been declared "recovered" isn't experienced as such by most. The gains reflected by the rise of the Dow have all gone to the top 10%. Salaries of non professionals have stagnated or declined.
Here is how Democrats respond to this charge: This is a new global economy and the kind of jobs that once existed for someone without sufficient education are gone. And workers have to compete with those in impoverished nations abroad who will work in conditions and for pay that Americans would not. There is clearly some validity to this point of view.
The problem with these arguments is that there are plenty of other countries in the same global economy that don't have the level of inequality we do, so it's not impossible to do something about it if you want to.
There's also the argument that Republicans in Congress have blocked all the Democrats have tried to do, though they were the minority for the first two Obama years. Frank points out that on a state level, states ruled by Democratic governors with democratic state legislatures didn't use this opportunity to pursue policies other than ones similar to those of the national party.
Frank quotes Democrat (and Bill Clinton's treasury secretary) Larry Summers as saying: "One of the reasons that inequality has probably gone up in our society is that people are being treated closer to the way that they're supposed to be treated."
So are the Democrats now mainly bad guys? (Frank says there are numerous exceptions, but that this is the trend.) I believe some of these bad guys may truly believe they are doing the best they can under the circumstances, but who's to know for sure? Frank himself admits to being charmed by Obama and even Bill Clinton, despite policies which are anti-working class. Maybe I am charmed as well and won't grant them their bad guy status so readily. And maybe it's just too depressing to accept it.
So when is Trump going to start this big public works project he campaigned on?
Despite the griping about liberals I've heard my whole life, I still haven't experienced a truly liberal presidential administration. I guess it's just a favorite slur of the right, mostly devoid of meaning.
Thomas Frank frequently rouses rabbles - I sometimes think that's his main goal, so I have been dismissive of his writing in the past. However, Listen, Liberal is a concise summation of how the Democratic Party abandoned the principles of leftist governing in order to win. At least, initially it seemed to be a ploy to ascend; it now seems the working class is completely absent in the core philosophy of the party.
If you're comfortable imagining the current Democratic establishment represents your best interests and would like to remain comfortable with that, this might not be the book for you. If you're conservative and would like to read about the failures of the supposedly opposition party, …
Despite the griping about liberals I've heard my whole life, I still haven't experienced a truly liberal presidential administration. I guess it's just a favorite slur of the right, mostly devoid of meaning.
Thomas Frank frequently rouses rabbles - I sometimes think that's his main goal, so I have been dismissive of his writing in the past. However, Listen, Liberal is a concise summation of how the Democratic Party abandoned the principles of leftist governing in order to win. At least, initially it seemed to be a ploy to ascend; it now seems the working class is completely absent in the core philosophy of the party.
If you're comfortable imagining the current Democratic establishment represents your best interests and would like to remain comfortable with that, this might not be the book for you. If you're conservative and would like to read about the failures of the supposedly opposition party, you might enjoy some of this. If you sit firmly on the left side of the political spectrum but have trouble putting your finger on what it is that's gone so horribly wrong, this might be your book.
