Listen, Liberal
Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
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4.4 • 48 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A SCATHING LOOK AT THE STANDARD-BEARERS OF LIBERAL POLITICS—A BOOK THAT ASKS: WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH DEMOCRATS?
“Thoroughly entertaining . . . Frank delights in skewering the sacred cows of coastal liberalism. . . . A serious political critique.”—The New York Times Book Review (front page)
Now with a new afterword, The New York Times bestselling author Thomas Frank’s powerful analysis offers the best diagnosis to date of the liberal malady.
Hailed as “the most prescient book” of the year, Listen, Liberal accurately described what ailed the Democratic Party even before the election of 2016 made their weaknesses obvious. It is the story of how the “Party of the People” detached itself from its historic constituency among average Americans and chose instead to line up with the winners of our new economic order.
Drawing on years of research and firsthand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have over the last decades increasingly abandoned their traditional goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. With sardonic wit and lacerating logic, he uncovers the corporate and cultural elitism that have largely eclipsed the party’s old working- and middle-class commitment. And he warns that the Democrats’ only chance of regaining their health and averting a future of ever-increasing inequality is a return to their historic faith.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an astute dissection of contemporary Democratic politics, Frank (Pity the Billionaire) asserts that stagnant wages and the decline of the American middle class were neither unavoidable nor wholly the work of a plutocratic Republican party. He skewers Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and lesser liberal lights such as former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick with the savage clarity of a man who never bought what they were selling. He tracks three grim decades of the party's abrogation of the working class that once filled its rank-and-file membership, replaced by harmful fealty and obsequious reverence toward the "Liberal Class," well-educated, impeccably credentialed white-collar professionals. By the first Clinton administration, non-college-educated laboring voters were left open to widening inequality, a shocking erosion of workers' rights, and a growing concentration of power and capital facilitated by trade pacts like NAFTA. Worse, Democratic establishment figures such as the Clintons have embraced this dynamic, failing to confront abusive financial practices and engaging in fatuous reverence for "innovation" and startup companies. Frank demonstrates, cogently and at times acidly, how the party lost the allegiance of blue-collar Americans.
Customer Reviews
Listen liberal
Very good book. After Chapter 6, however, the access to the footnotes fails. That needs to be fixed, and I would like it fixed in my copy! Can that be arranged?
Highly recommended
In this book, Thomas Frank really nails what has gone wrong with the Democratic Party, and he wrote it in 2016 before Donald Trump had even won the Republican nomination for president. The writing style is typical Frank—lucid and witty. I have been recommending “Listen Liberal” to my Democratic friends who cannot understand how their party could get pummeled so badly in 2016. It is still as relevant today as it was then.
Dumb
Just a bunch of clap back to conservatives. Same level of study has "proved" Jesus rode a dinosaur. Waste of time for folks who are just seeking half truths or outright lies to feel good about bashing the left.