Perhaps Thomas Frank should have added an exclamation mark to the title of his latest book. As it was, Listen Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? largely fell on deaf ears when it was initially released in April 2016. Echoing arguments frequently made by Bernie Sanders during the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, Frank’s pointed polemic attacked the Clintons, Rahm Emanuel, and the mainstream Democratic Party for abandoning America’s working people in favor of Wall Street and the professional classes. But the mainstream media and political commentators mostly shunned the book until after Election Day—when it suddenly looked prescient. On November 9, it was listed in the New York Times article “Six Books to Help Understand Trump’s Win.”
How do you explain the greater interest abroad?
It also seems like a lot of Democrats have used the Russian hacking scandal and the alleged Putin-Trump ties to paper over flaws with their own party. It was like, “Putin hacked the election so why should we change?”
—Thomas Frank, author of Listen Liberal
Personally, I think it’s a positive thing that people aren’t scared of the word “socialism.” On the other hand, Sanders isn’t really a socialist—he’s a welfare-state liberal. His ideas are out of Harry Truman’s time, not all that radical really.
But the problem is that it’s been proven to be untrue. The Clintons sold out Democratic principles in all these different ways with the idea that they’d win the White House and that made it all worth it. So they’re supposed to be the faction that delivers victory—but what just happened? The party is destroyed across the country. These are the fruits of that strategy. It’s done. Clintonism exists in order to put down the left wing and subdue the left wing. That is its role in the world and in history. That’s who they are.
Mon 3/27, 6 PM Seminary Co-Op Bookstore 5751 S. Woodlawn 773-752-4381 semcoop.com Free
