Pity the Billionaire
The Unlikely Comeback of the American Right
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Economic meltdown usually brings calls for change. Or it’s supposed to.
But when Thomas Frank set out to find them in America today, all he heard were loud demands that the losers be hit harder and that the winners get more.
Using first-hand reporting, a deep political understanding and a wicked sense of humour, Frank examines the weird double-think that has enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous. Pity the Billionaire takes us on a wild road-trip through the strange landscape of the American Right, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, makes sense of a topsy-turvy world and shows how instead of complying with the new speed limit, conservative America has stamped hard on the accelerator. It is essential reading for understanding how we all got to where we are, and how we might get out.
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Frank's fifth book spotlights America's political shift to the right and its embrace of laissez-faire economics ("the dogma of the nation's ruling class") in an effort to figure out why so many harshly affected by the Great Recession are falling in line behind the banner of free market theory. One response is that the downtrodden are quick to "lash out at whoever is in power" and the talking points of right wing pundits are crisp: "Limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets." Of course, the culture wars haven't ended, but they're invisible in the platform of the Tea Party. While others continue to shed heat, rather than light, on such issues as gay marriage, fiscal messaging is the prevailing ethos. Sadly, Frank's book ends before the Occupy Wall Street movement took center stage across the United States and the world in fall 2011.
