Thomas Frank is a historian and writer. He is also the man who tried to save the Democratic Party and our Nation from great harm. He is the great chronicler of one of the most grievous, self-inflicted wounds in modern American history. Twelve years ago, in What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Frank tried to warn the Democratic Party’s dominant elites’ that their policies and contempt for workers were pushing a large part of its base out of the Party. Many of the workers that were the Democratic Party’s traditional base were leaving the Party and failing to participate in elections, but some were supporting the far-right wing of the Republican Party. At the national level, the New Democrats’ candidates remained highly competitive, but the Republican Party was able to attain complete political domination of most states.
This year, Frank renewed his warnings in Listen, Liberal, which explains with characteristic verve, facts, and candor how the “New Democrats” made the New Deal, labor, and the working class their targets for attack and ridicule. The book explains why the New Democrats’ policies, which adopted traditional Republican policies, proved so destructive to labor and the working class.
The New Democrats cannot claim to be shocked that many members of the working class and labor eventually responded to the New Democrats’ contempt and policy betrayals and the terrible harms those policies inflicted upon the working class by increasingly refusing to support such Democratic candidates. Frank’s books show that the contempt of the New Democrats for the New Deal, labor, and the working class was and is palpable.…New Economic Perspectives
The Terrible Cost to Democrats and Our Nation of Ignoring Tom Frank’s Warnings
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC
4 comments:
" the New Democrats’ policies, which adopted traditional Republican policies, "
This guy is FOS...
New Democrats = Bill Clinton
Clinton appointed Robert Rubin Treasury secretary and began dismantling the remnants of old Keynesianism in favor of "sound finance," ultimately resulting in the Clinton surpluses that the New Democrats continue to tout as "responsible government" after the Bush II deficits. Obama worked hard to reduce the deficits that he inherited from Bush policies.
Clinton expanded NATO eastward and attacked Serbia ostensibly to show that Democrats were as hawkish as the GOP
Clinton continued the destruction of the welfare state by ending "welfare."
When it came time to stand for reelection Clinton was in trouble politically, so he followed GOP strategist Dick Morris's advice to "triangulate" to the right to capture the center, presuming that the Dem base had nowhere else to go.
The basic strategy was to bring liberal and moderate Republicans over to the Democratic side as the GOP moved further to the right.
Finally, the Dem base revolted and Bernie is the result. HRC is blowing it off.
Obama continued that strategy, and Hillary is also onboard with it.
If you're a neoliberal maniac (what is erroneously called "conservative" and just as often "liberal" or "progressive") who hates their country, the citizens of their country and the peoples of the world, vote for the Democratic party.
If you no longer live on planet earth, have lost the ability to reason at the low levels of primitive hominids and fervently desire the total annihilation of all life forms, vote for the Republican party.
John made me LOL
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