By Mark L. Taylor
The Commoner Call (7/31/17)
Thomas Frank gives a free-wheeling talk on the recent history and current state of the Democratic Party. He also has a good conversation with the audience that really gives an understanding of how the bumbling democrats keep missing the message and, through that, continue their losing ways.
The interview was from the middle of the 2016 election tornado before the primaries sealed America’s fate.
If the democratic party is ever going to return to power the lessons Frank outlines must not only be learned but acted on in a way to help the majority of American citizens who are being left behind by the corporate state. Here are a few observations by Frank, but the whole interview – and the Young Turks interview linked below – are worth the time. :
“This is why Bill Clinton’s admirers liked him because he killed the New Deal. That’s what he did. That is his great overarching accomplishment, according to his fans. Okay? Think about that.”
“The working people that the party use to care about, democrats figured, had nowhere else to go – in the famous Clinton era expression. Well folks, they have found somewhere else to go. By abandoning these people the democrats have made inevitable both the economic desolution that has overtaken the part of the country where I used to live [Kansas] as well as this populist backlash against liberalism that has been building now for decades.”
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“This system is spinning out of control because of inequality. They won’t do a goddamn thing about it.”
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“If you let workers form unions you will see an amazing shift in the distribution of wealth.”
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“We talk about race all the time. We never talk about class. Never.”
Link to 1-Hour, 11-Minute Video
- Thomas Frank Young Turks Interview – Host Cenk Uygur interviews author, historian, journalist, political analyst, columnist and cultural critic Thomas Frank. Uygur and Frank talk about the price of challenging the corporate democratic party from the left. More about Thomas Frank’s new book here: http://listenliberal.com/Thomas Frank. Link to 34-Minute Interview