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jorgethefrog's review against another edition
Other books had higher priority, and living in Seattle taught me that liberalism is the smiley face of fascism.
mdrewb20's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent analysis of the problems facing the Democratic Party. Maybe being "not Republican" isn't enough anymore...
hoboken's review against another edition
4.0
Written by the author of “What's the Matter with Kansas,the subtitle of this book could be “What's the Matter with the Democrats.” If you're a lefty like me, this book will raise your blood pressure. Written in early 2016 before the Presidential nominating conventions when Trump (“outrageous”) and Cruz (“a one-man wrecking crew”) were still in contention, it illustrates how we ended up with Trump in the White House. It's clear, specific, well foot-noted, and devastating. In his own words:
“Even if Democrats do succeed in winning the presidency in 2016 . . . it won't save us. Their leadership faction has no intention of doing what the situation requires.”
His thesis is that the prolabor, prounion, party of FDR that brought us jobs, houses, good schools, and the GI Bill has been replaced by a group of people who worship meritocracy, a system in which inequality isn't a bug; it's a feature. It's the old Horatio Alger story—with luck and pluck and lots of brains, you can get a good education, a great job with bonuses, make a fortune, and you'll deserve it because you're smart and creative and know what the country needs. If you don't manage this, if you're stuck in Ferguson or Flint or some burned-out coal-mining town, well, what's the matter with you. You deserve your hard-scrabble Uber driver, adjunct professor, gig economy life. You can always get a microloan. Your lender will make lots of money, but you won't get much of anywhere.
As a result not only is our collective American hand-basket plummeting faster and faster, the Democrats can't win elections anymore. Trump's in the White House, and all we get from the Democratic party is more Tom-Friedman-happy talk about how we all just need to be flexible in our new flat world.
“The direction the Democrats have chosen to follow. . . has been a failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health. . . What else are we to call it when the left party . . . chooses to confront an epic economic breakdown by talking hopefully about entrepreneurship and innovation. When the party of professionals repeatedly falls for bad, self-serving ideas like bank deregulation, the 'creative class,' and empowerment through bank loans? When the party of the common man basically allows aristocracy to return. . . They combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach-churning. . . And every two years, they simply assume that being non-Republican is sufficient to rally the voters . . to their standard.” It didn't work this time, did it?
Yet the Democratic party won't reform itself. Starting a real competitive third party is just about impossible. And reviving organized labor, our one hope against inequality, isn't about to happen. Telling the truth about this failure is our only hope which Franks tries, with devastating specifics, to do in the hope that liberals will listen.
“Even if Democrats do succeed in winning the presidency in 2016 . . . it won't save us. Their leadership faction has no intention of doing what the situation requires.”
His thesis is that the prolabor, prounion, party of FDR that brought us jobs, houses, good schools, and the GI Bill has been replaced by a group of people who worship meritocracy, a system in which inequality isn't a bug; it's a feature. It's the old Horatio Alger story—with luck and pluck and lots of brains, you can get a good education, a great job with bonuses, make a fortune, and you'll deserve it because you're smart and creative and know what the country needs. If you don't manage this, if you're stuck in Ferguson or Flint or some burned-out coal-mining town, well, what's the matter with you. You deserve your hard-scrabble Uber driver, adjunct professor, gig economy life. You can always get a microloan. Your lender will make lots of money, but you won't get much of anywhere.
As a result not only is our collective American hand-basket plummeting faster and faster, the Democrats can't win elections anymore. Trump's in the White House, and all we get from the Democratic party is more Tom-Friedman-happy talk about how we all just need to be flexible in our new flat world.
“The direction the Democrats have chosen to follow. . . has been a failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health. . . What else are we to call it when the left party . . . chooses to confront an epic economic breakdown by talking hopefully about entrepreneurship and innovation. When the party of professionals repeatedly falls for bad, self-serving ideas like bank deregulation, the 'creative class,' and empowerment through bank loans? When the party of the common man basically allows aristocracy to return. . . They combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach-churning. . . And every two years, they simply assume that being non-Republican is sufficient to rally the voters . . to their standard.” It didn't work this time, did it?
Yet the Democratic party won't reform itself. Starting a real competitive third party is just about impossible. And reviving organized labor, our one hope against inequality, isn't about to happen. Telling the truth about this failure is our only hope which Franks tries, with devastating specifics, to do in the hope that liberals will listen.
kwheeles's review against another edition
5.0
Well constructed, compelling, highly-opinionated argument that the US Democratic Party has lost its way. That is has gone from FDR's people's party to a focus on the technocratic/meritocratic elite. That it has lost its concern regard for the overarching topic of inequality (especially that of income inequality) to cater to the professional class. From the diner to Davos. From unions to Uber.
Bill Clinton's tragic push for mass incarceration, gutting of welfare, neoliberal policies, and disregard for income inequality. Barack Obama's technocratic neoliberalism and academic professionalism.
The book accurately and persuasively addresses the changes in the capital/labor dynamic - with crippled anti-trust policy bringing in a new gilded age; and labor union decline and government policy weakness stripping labor's power. Atomic labor forced to accept smaller and smaller assignments served up efficiently via information technology improvements that benefit capital. "Innovation" in many cases delivering the same services - but cheaper by ignoring existing regulatory frameworks (Uber, AirBnB). Those regulatory frameworks were established for a reason ("never take down a fence until you know why someone put it there").
Very thought-provoking. Great stuff.
Bill Clinton's tragic push for mass incarceration, gutting of welfare, neoliberal policies, and disregard for income inequality. Barack Obama's technocratic neoliberalism and academic professionalism.
The book accurately and persuasively addresses the changes in the capital/labor dynamic - with crippled anti-trust policy bringing in a new gilded age; and labor union decline and government policy weakness stripping labor's power. Atomic labor forced to accept smaller and smaller assignments served up efficiently via information technology improvements that benefit capital. "Innovation" in many cases delivering the same services - but cheaper by ignoring existing regulatory frameworks (Uber, AirBnB). Those regulatory frameworks were established for a reason ("never take down a fence until you know why someone put it there").
Very thought-provoking. Great stuff.
thejdizzler's review against another edition
5.0
A scathing critique of the "libtards" from Carter to Hillary that current democrats seemed to have failed to learn from. Where are the goddamn stimulus checks?
bzodonnell's review against another edition
5.0
Damn.
In the days after the election of Donald Trump, I felt I had some reading to do to get a better handle on what happened (displeased with the reductive "working class white people are just racist, Islamophobic, and hate women" narrative that began cropping up almost immediately). This book did an excellent job of putting this election - and, in fact, how Donald Trump mustered the support that drove him to the presidency - in a broader historical perspective.
First of all, a word of consolation to my fellow progressives: this book will not try to tell you that the real victims of present-day America are the working class whites, nor will it try to shift blame to the oppressed populations the liberal establishment has already tried to target as the source of their failure (you know, the jackasses who love to say shit like "You may say Hillary was a weak, corrupt candidate BUT MAN IF ONLY WE HAVEN'T FOCUSED ON BATHROOMS THAT AND TRANS PEOPLE ARE THE REAL PROBLEM HERE").
In fact, this book doesn't try to split hairs on who is or is not oppressed. Its focus is more narrow: how the Democratic Party and all the people who run it essentially deserted the working class to genuflect before the Great Modern Gods of Tech, Wall Street, and professionalism more broadly. His argument essentially boils down to this: the Democrats don't avoid helping the working class because of Republican opposition, as is commonly believed. They don't help the working class because they just don't want to.
Frank is quite thorough in his indictment. Obviously, the Republicans are to blame in part for the fall of the working class - hi Reagan! - but, as he illustrates, Bill Clinton was instrumental in continuing and expanding those policies in the name of "compromise" and "bipartisanship" and "governing from the center." He gutted welfare, created harsher sentencing laws that have sent huge numbers of minorities to prison, and tried to take down Social Security before being stopped, of course, by a blowjob. Obama, for his part, talked in great detail about inequality, but in practice did nothing for the working class either; he embraced Wall Street and then, in his second term, turned away from them as far as he needed to in order to better embrace Silicon Valley, with no embraces or blown kisses to that middle part of the country in between the two.
For me, Listen, Liberal was helpful because it contextualized a lot of things I've been personally frustrated with for some time. Why didn't the Democrats do shit with their supermajority in 2008? Ah, yes, because they were far more beholden to the financial elite than they'd like anyone to think, and they didn't and don't care about poor people. Why the fuck is Obamacare so complex? For the same reason that financial jargon exists: to prevent ordinary people from understanding and questioning it. And why, why, WHY are Democrats obsessed with start-ups and "innovation" and all the shit that has ruined the Bay Area in the name of "progress"? Because that's who they are, really: they love professionalism, education, "smartness" - and they don't care about poor people. The push for higher education, the disdain for the working class, the love for Silicon Valley, the love for Wall Street, the complex laws, the gutting of welfare, conspicuous Democratic inaction on poverty, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's empty words on inequality - they're all connected, and it's horrifying.
I'm starting to feel like I'm writing a shitty summary of the book so I'm going to stop, but there's one point Frank makes that's particularly salient now: the Democrats felt empowered to ignore the working class and basically do whatever they want because, in their view, the working class had nowhere else to go anyway. They were a sure vote. The Democrats could praise professionalism all they want and shit on the working class and ignore their problems because, what, were the working class going to vote for the Republicans, the party of billionaire CEOs avoiding taxes?
Oh, wait. Actually, yes. Yes, they were. Turns out that if you kick someone repeatedly they eventually WILL kick back. Trump's victory makes a lot more sense when you realize that these people, the working class, essentially went along with the Democrats for almost 25 years during which the Democrats (including Obama, and especially Bill Clinton FUCK YOU BILL CLINTON) not only ignored them, but actively passed policies that made their lives worse in concrete terms. While many of the people who voted for Trump probably don't know the exact details, they've noticed that their lives have not improved even though the economy is booming. Meanwhile, they were presented with a choice between Hillary Clinton, who claimed populism while openly allying herself with the very people the working class sees as the architects of their fall; and Donald Trump, a man with personal ties to Wall Street and no political experience, but who at least acknowledged them, spoke to them, and claimed he'd make their lives better. He won't, of course, but that's not the point. For 25 years, the Democratic Party has basically been shouting "WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!" Then someone comes along and says, "I do care about you, and there IS something we can do about it." Maybe that person sucks, but staying the course clearly hasn't been working. What do you have to lose by going with the person who at least seems to be listening? (Again, a lot - but that will only become clear in the next few years, unfortunately.)
So yeah. Fuck the Democratic Party. Fuck Obama. Fuck Hillary Clinton. Fuck Greenspan, Geithner, Bernanke, Emmanuel, Sommers. And fuck Bill Clinton. Seriously, FUCK YOU BILL CLINTON!
Anyway, this book is great. It's very well-written, informative, and timely. Definitely recommended.
AND FUCK BILL CLINTON!
In the days after the election of Donald Trump, I felt I had some reading to do to get a better handle on what happened (displeased with the reductive "working class white people are just racist, Islamophobic, and hate women" narrative that began cropping up almost immediately). This book did an excellent job of putting this election - and, in fact, how Donald Trump mustered the support that drove him to the presidency - in a broader historical perspective.
First of all, a word of consolation to my fellow progressives: this book will not try to tell you that the real victims of present-day America are the working class whites, nor will it try to shift blame to the oppressed populations the liberal establishment has already tried to target as the source of their failure (you know, the jackasses who love to say shit like "You may say Hillary was a weak, corrupt candidate BUT MAN IF ONLY WE HAVEN'T FOCUSED ON BATHROOMS THAT AND TRANS PEOPLE ARE THE REAL PROBLEM HERE").
In fact, this book doesn't try to split hairs on who is or is not oppressed. Its focus is more narrow: how the Democratic Party and all the people who run it essentially deserted the working class to genuflect before the Great Modern Gods of Tech, Wall Street, and professionalism more broadly. His argument essentially boils down to this: the Democrats don't avoid helping the working class because of Republican opposition, as is commonly believed. They don't help the working class because they just don't want to.
Frank is quite thorough in his indictment. Obviously, the Republicans are to blame in part for the fall of the working class - hi Reagan! - but, as he illustrates, Bill Clinton was instrumental in continuing and expanding those policies in the name of "compromise" and "bipartisanship" and "governing from the center." He gutted welfare, created harsher sentencing laws that have sent huge numbers of minorities to prison, and tried to take down Social Security before being stopped, of course, by a blowjob. Obama, for his part, talked in great detail about inequality, but in practice did nothing for the working class either; he embraced Wall Street and then, in his second term, turned away from them as far as he needed to in order to better embrace Silicon Valley, with no embraces or blown kisses to that middle part of the country in between the two.
For me, Listen, Liberal was helpful because it contextualized a lot of things I've been personally frustrated with for some time. Why didn't the Democrats do shit with their supermajority in 2008? Ah, yes, because they were far more beholden to the financial elite than they'd like anyone to think, and they didn't and don't care about poor people. Why the fuck is Obamacare so complex? For the same reason that financial jargon exists: to prevent ordinary people from understanding and questioning it. And why, why, WHY are Democrats obsessed with start-ups and "innovation" and all the shit that has ruined the Bay Area in the name of "progress"? Because that's who they are, really: they love professionalism, education, "smartness" - and they don't care about poor people. The push for higher education, the disdain for the working class, the love for Silicon Valley, the love for Wall Street, the complex laws, the gutting of welfare, conspicuous Democratic inaction on poverty, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's empty words on inequality - they're all connected, and it's horrifying.
I'm starting to feel like I'm writing a shitty summary of the book so I'm going to stop, but there's one point Frank makes that's particularly salient now: the Democrats felt empowered to ignore the working class and basically do whatever they want because, in their view, the working class had nowhere else to go anyway. They were a sure vote. The Democrats could praise professionalism all they want and shit on the working class and ignore their problems because, what, were the working class going to vote for the Republicans, the party of billionaire CEOs avoiding taxes?
Oh, wait. Actually, yes. Yes, they were. Turns out that if you kick someone repeatedly they eventually WILL kick back. Trump's victory makes a lot more sense when you realize that these people, the working class, essentially went along with the Democrats for almost 25 years during which the Democrats (including Obama, and especially Bill Clinton FUCK YOU BILL CLINTON) not only ignored them, but actively passed policies that made their lives worse in concrete terms. While many of the people who voted for Trump probably don't know the exact details, they've noticed that their lives have not improved even though the economy is booming. Meanwhile, they were presented with a choice between Hillary Clinton, who claimed populism while openly allying herself with the very people the working class sees as the architects of their fall; and Donald Trump, a man with personal ties to Wall Street and no political experience, but who at least acknowledged them, spoke to them, and claimed he'd make their lives better. He won't, of course, but that's not the point. For 25 years, the Democratic Party has basically been shouting "WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!" Then someone comes along and says, "I do care about you, and there IS something we can do about it." Maybe that person sucks, but staying the course clearly hasn't been working. What do you have to lose by going with the person who at least seems to be listening? (Again, a lot - but that will only become clear in the next few years, unfortunately.)
So yeah. Fuck the Democratic Party. Fuck Obama. Fuck Hillary Clinton. Fuck Greenspan, Geithner, Bernanke, Emmanuel, Sommers. And fuck Bill Clinton. Seriously, FUCK YOU BILL CLINTON!
Anyway, this book is great. It's very well-written, informative, and timely. Definitely recommended.
AND FUCK BILL CLINTON!
spaffrackett's review against another edition
4.0
Savages holy liberal values such as education and innovation. I was left wanting a "but wait" here is how we can fix it which is why I can only give it 4 out of 5 neutron bombs.
davidspin's review against another edition
4.0
Frank does a great job of articulating the discomfort I've often felt about how politics unfolds in this country. Living through the first Clinton's years was to live in a time of cognitive dissonance. The Democratic Party transformed into advocates and apologists for corporations and turned its back on the New Deal groups that gave the US a thriving middle class. The party's embrace of Wall Street and the rhetoric of go-go business, deregulation, and "free trade" agreements where every man and woman is an warrior-entrepreneur was profoundly important in putting us where we are today. Thank you, Thomas Frank, for making the connection explicit. Even better, thank you for doing it with wit and passion.