Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank

[SheilaT]

This book should be required reading for everyone who considers him or herself a Democrat.

He's especially harsh about what Bill Clinton did to destroy much of the traditional base of the Democratic Party, policies, heartily endorsed and extended by Barack Obama.

If you haven't read it, don't assume you know what's in it. My one sentence summary leaves out a lot.

[arcane1]

1. I have it on the table, just waiting for me to finish what I'm currently reading.

I'm looking forward to it

[Human101948]

2. Right now on DU, posters are proving the premise...

with their sneering disdain over Bernie's "pie in the sky" "socialist" proposals--

...Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.

With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

http://listenliberal.com/

Hillary promises more of the same.

[bjobotts]

16. My fear is that Hillary hate will get Trump elected.

So many voters have come to resent and hate Hillary and that will be the reason they will vote against her. It's the only way Trump could win. Fortunately, Bernie does not have a history of this sort. It's why the polls show him Beating Trump by much lager margins than Hillary. Don't let name recognition lose us this election.

[Octafish]

21. When the Democrats stopped giving a fig about the poor, the middle class got put on notice.

Now the middle class is evaporating. UMC, are you listening?

Great post, Human101948. Every word.

[certainot]

38. here's what analysts/observers like frank have completely missed

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, free market deregulation bullshit, swiftboating, and the hate and fear used to get people to vote republican.

24 years? that's about when the rw radio monopoly really got going, with 1000 locally coordinated think tank scripted radio stations. that's about when record partisanship started and ALEC went from obscurity to winning. that is why we have clarence thomas and hillary care got trashed - and why obama couldn't even get public option.

and we allow 90 of our 'liberal' universities to support/endorse 270 limbaugh stations, by broadcasting sports on them- so almost 1/4 of that republican attack on science and justice and human rights is done while those stations are wearing university mascots/logos! how many student protestors waste their time around capitols when they could do more and scare the crap out of the gop by protesting right in their own universities?

year after year dems whine about the failures of their reps while ignoring the fact that their local rw radio stations are taking free pot shots at them all day long. and analyze like frank, in a talk radio vacuum.

ignoring that for 25 years is the biggest political mistake in history, considering time lost on global warming

more lame analysis from guys like frank just makes it worse by suppressing votes - liberals and progressives feel hopeless and don't vote or just rely on ramping up the same old GOTV and donations and activism while allowing a few hundred national and locally think tank coordinated ignorant blowhards to yell over them year after year.

that is why dems have gone right, that is why dems have lost so badly with no brainer issues, and that is why sanders and warren and wellstone are exceptions rather than the norm.

someone who read the book said frank never mentions talk radio - that makes the book pretty useless IMO

[tomp]

55. I'm sure Frank has not missed this....

...though this seems to be the heart of your argument against Frank.

The real question is why have the dems been unable (or unwilling) to counteract it?

[certainot]

61. it has the perfect defense - it gives liberals headaches

and because they believe the rw's bullshit that its 95% monopoly is an expression of free speech and market forces - as if 95% of americans who would listen to talk radio would prefer the lies and ignorance and hate of limbaugh and sons.

liberals also stupidly believe that its negated by their internet advantage

and mostly because people like frank have no way to read and study rw talk radio's content - the patterns and repetition and how it effects media and politics - so they write analyses like this, excluding the right's best weapon and blaming their own, and not voting- and then it gets worse.

apparently frank doesn't mention this major liberal disadvantage. i don't mean to pick on frank, but liberals are continuing to make a major mistake if they ignore the right's advantage in their political evaluations - it means it will continue to be ignored.

i used to think the content and repetition on those radio stations was important but this simple math, even if the $1000/hr is fairly arbitrary, should be enough to put rw radio and the absurdity of ignoring it in perspective:

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, free market deregulation bullshit, swiftboating, and the hate and fear used to get people to vote republican.


almost any issue can be protested at these 90 universities -- then maybe the left will notice. until then analysts like frank are really missing a major part of the problem.

[tomp]

73. you are right that these things could be protested...

....but you did not address the role of the democratic party in failing to effectively oppose or find a counterattack to RW radio (or RW TV for that matter).

[certainot]

75. dem politicians, strategists, etc don't listen to talk radio

and since there's no way to read analysis of it everyone has ignored and underestimated it, designating rw radio's dumb little brother fox as leader of rw media.

when hillary called it a vast right wing conspiracy limbaugh howled with laughter and so did most dems. whenever a prominent dem politician has even mentioned 'fairness doctrine' the rw radio empire screams FREE SPEECH!!! dems who mention it are derided. and criticism of it that goes anywhere usually devolves into personal criticism of limbaugh, which is useless.

and liberals and the left join in, having no fucking clue how many times it's kicked their ass.

its rise in the early 90's perfectly matches the rise of ALEC and record breaking partisanship, and many victories for the republicans in what should have been no brainers for dems.

if the left wants the party to go left there'd be no better way than to protest those stations and the universities that support them and generally go on the offensive re rw radio.

i've been laughed at and dismissed for 20 years for wasting my time with rw radio. dems/liberals get headaches listenign to it so they ignore it- the biggest political mistake in history.

since 25 years of content is impossible to analyze i decided to quantify it with a dollar value - and at a time when the left is screaming about money in politics, it cannot be ignored:

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, free market deregulation bullshit, swiftboating, and the hate and fear used to get people to vote republican.

[MadDAsHell]

3. Goals for expanding opportunity/economic justice have been replaced by political correctness goals.

Last edited Mon May 9, 2016, 02:09 PM - Edit history (1)

You have an entire generation whose "protest" focus is making sure people don't use hurtful words.

Very few self-labeled "liberals" in 2016 are willing to be hosed, tasered, beaten, shot, etc. for worker's rights, women's equality, etc.

But they are willing to change their Facebook profile picture to tell you to stop being so mean.

[lunatica]

19. Over the top much?

[tonyt53]

26. Well said!!!!!

[bjo59]

35. Well made point. Absolutely agree.

[SheilaT]

39. This bullshit about supposed political correctness is what

backward thinking neanderthal assholes want you to believe. They are more often the ones whimpering about how they've been hurt by political correctness, how UNFAIR it is that they can't have pictures of naked women on the walls of their workplace, or how all feminists are ugly and just need to get laid.

The Democratic party has systematically abandoned and even denigrated and mocked the very things that originally built the middle class in this country.

Read the book, then get back to us.

[MadDAsHell]

40. "the very things that originally built the middle class in this country."

You're arguing that the past success of the middle class can be narrowed down to a focus on verbal semantics?

Sorry, political correctness is what we got when Democrats got bored in the 1980's but still wanted something to "fight for". Before that they actually DID something for this country.

[SheilaT]

41. You really do need to read the book. The things that originally built the middle class

in this country were things like strong unions, Glass-Steagel -- those are what built the middle class and what the Democratic party systematically abandoned. Political correctness is what some people fall back on to claim that's why things aren't very good any more. People like Donald mock PC so as to somehow justify their rudeness, their misogyny, their racism, their homophobia.

[JoePhilly]

51. Isn't the battle over political correctness a major plank in the Trump platform?

Its one of the things his supporters love about him.

[Hotler]

52. I agree...

Nothing is going to change in this country until people take to the streets fighting mad by the tens to hundreds of thousands and stay there for months at a time. The days of playing nice and voting out corrupted politicians are over.

[appalachiablue]

4. Get the book, 'Listen Liberal! Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?'

and watch Thomas Frank's excellent book talk, March 24, 2016 at his hometown Kansas City, MO Public Library.
------

Published on Mar 27, 2016

KANSAS CITY, MO, March 24, 2016

Author and Kansas City native son Thomas Frank returned to his hometown to talk about what's wrong with the Democratic Party in support of his new book 'Listen, Liberal'.

Following on the tradition of his popular book 'What's the Matter with Kansas' which carefully chronicled how the Republican Party of Lincoln has been seduced and deliberately taken over by extremist ideologues of the far right, Frank now makes the case that the Democratic Party has also been taken over by a type of conservative ideology that, while not promoting economic inequality, certainly rationalizes it.

While Republican "establishment" figures revere the accumulation of wealth as a sign of 'winning' which somehow makes them automatically somehow qualified --or entitled-- to govern, The Democratic "establishment" believes that the world is a 'meritocracy' where the elites of the 'professional class' are best suited to govern based on their superior educational attainment and connections.

Frank asserts that the two political parties dominated by societal elites have systemically failed the workers in America, resulting in a space for populism to naturally grow into.

The Democratic Party under the leadership of President Bill Clinton turned its back on its working class and middle class roots while attempting to expand and capture the professional class. Claiming that 'they have no place else to go,' the Democrats have also been responsible for policies that increased income inequality and increased the economic insecurity of white working class people. Some of these people have found a new place to go. They have now left the building. Many of them can now be seen following a pied piper named Trump.

The broken two party political system that has largely seen the hereditary moneyed elites-- who thought they could control the working class with a mix of social conservatism, phony fiscal fears and tax voodoo, and foreign fear mongering-- fight with the intellectual professional class elites who thought they could control the working class because 'they have no place else to go', is giving way to an authoritarian populism embodied by a narcissistic reality TV caricature of success likely to be the next Republican Presidential nominee.

Video recorded in Kansas City on March 24, 2016 at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library (http://www.kclibrary.org/) by the Working Journalist Press (http://www.workingjournalistpress.com/).

Much More, http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017358989

[NewImproved Deal]

9. Thanks! Bears repeating:

"The Democratic Party under the leadership of President Bill Clinton turned its back on its working class and middle class roots while attempting to expand and capture the professional class. Claiming that 'they have no place else to go,' the Democrats have also been responsible for policies that increased income inequality..."

Let's bring a REAL Democrat back to the White House!

[link:|

[appalachiablue]

15. Amen! Bernie is a New Deal Democrat, Not a Radical, as Chomsky recently said.

[Califonz]

45. Celebritocracy

It isn't about policies now, it's about who is more famous and who the teevee people talk about the most.

[ReRe]

18. Everyone who calls him/herself a Democrat....

.... needs to read all of Thomas Frank's books, and especially this one. Great video of Frank talking about the content of his current book "Listen Liberal..."

And did you catch that new word he came up with "appalachification?"

[appalachiablue]

63. I caught it for real. Like Chris Hedges' recent Mexicanization of the US.

Chris Hedges: The Mexicanization of the United States (trade deals and neoliberalism) [View all]
from Truthdig: The Mexicanization of the United States Posted on Mar 13, 2016 By Chris Hedges

..From Mexico to Greece to the United States, the scenario is the same, varying only in degree. Neoliberalism and globalization create a vast race to the bottom. Duplicitous political elites, epitomized by Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, are or will be highly compensated for doling out trillions in “quantitative easing” to banks and other financial firms while delivering credulous voters to the corporate guillotine. Everyone and everything, including the natural world, is transformed into a commodity to exploit for profit.



Workers at one of the maquiladoras in Juarez, Mexico, raise flags in 2013. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, such factories have proliferated, but critics of the pact say its effects have been economically devastating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. (Ivan Pierre Aguirre / AP)

MORE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7698841

[Yavin4]

5. Bill Clinton did not destroy the traditional base of the Dem party

The traditional base (the FDR coalition) abandoned the Dem party in favor of Republicans. White working class males voted en masse for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I. Look at the voting patterns.

After 1988, the Dems had to change their political strategy or face continued losses.

Frank is being disingenuous in his book, if not outright engaging in fraud.

[csziggy]

7. Yep, Dixicrats and Reagan Democrats weakened the Democratic Party n/t

[Boomer]

12. "the Dems had to change their political strategy or face continued losses"

If you change your platform what exactly have you won? Certain individuals may have won their political job, but the people who make up the base -- you know, those people who were the focus of the old platform -- win nothing.

I'd rather just lose outright than watch party leadership saunter away with money in their pockets, leaving everyone else behind.

[Yavin4]

27. What did "those people" gain by voting for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush?

What did the South gain by voting for Republicans for every elected office? Look at the demos.

[SheilaT]

13. Did you read the book?

Frank makes it clear that while there was already a steady erosion of the base starting with Nixon's election, it went on steroids under Clinton, and continues to this day.

All of the complaining everyone here does about Debbie Wasserman-Schultz really has its basis in exactly that continued abandonment of the base.

Bernie resonates with those who truly get what the Democratic Party used to be about, and his supporters (myself among them) understand very clearly that electing Hillary Clinton will only continue the division of this country into two classes, the very rich and the very poor.

[Yavin4]

22. Didn't read the book. I Saw him interviewed, and he's flat out lying to serve his point.

There are White male leftists who cannot and do not acknowledge the role that racism played (and continues to play) in the defeat of a progressive agenda. They won't acknowledge that White working class resentment towards the Civil Rights movement lead to the rise of the conservative movement and the dominance of Republicans in presidential elections from 1968 through 1988.

It was only then that the Dems had to develop an alternative strategy to get around this voting bloc which has lead to the Obama coalition.

[SheilaT]

24. Really? You saw him interviewed and you know he's flat out lying?

I have read the book, and I suggest you do so. I did say in the OP that if you haven't read it you shouldn't assume you know what's in it. Clearly, your reading skills are deficient, and I suspect your listening skills are likewise.

[leftofcool]

53. Yes we get it. Bernie wants to take us back to the good old days of FDR

Good economic times as long as you were white. Back to rampant lynchings where only white males could get a job. Back to good ole economic times as long as you weren't Japanese. No thanks.

[bunnies]

56. Do you honestly believe Bernie wants to bring back lynchings and internment camps? nt

[Cosmocat]

60. I would not off hand dismiss the point the other poster is making

I am a split in this election.

I voted Bernie because he is more right on the issues and is a STRONG voice for progressive policies, something the democratic party is amazingly void of.

At the same time, while I get what Hillary is, I am going to vote and support her in the general (presumably).

IMO, Bill, her, BHO aren't the CAUSE, they are the symptom.

The party is completely fractured in the manner that the other poster notes.

End of the day, the personality appeal wins out because of this split.

[SheilaT]

65. It's hard to know if Bill and Hillary and all the other New Way Dems, Neoliberals, whatever name you

want to put on them, it's hard to know if they fully understand that their policies have gutted the Middle Class. If they've done it knowingly, they're criminals. If unknowingly, they really should have figured it out by now.

Welfare reform created worse poverty than ever. It could have been done differently. The various crime bills, most notoriously the three strikes ones incarcerated millions for little good reasons. Back in the early 90's we had a prison population of about 800,000, the highest in the world both in sheer numbers and as percentage of our overall population. Now it's well over 2 million. Is this something we should be proud of?

So if you get what Hillary is, a proponent of the many policies that have harmed the middle and working classes, I'm surprised you're willing to vote for her. Then again, you may be perfectly okay with those policies and the results they've produced.

Note: according to Wikipedia the Seychelles actually have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

[Cosmocat]

71. Your points are mostly valid

in regards to the polices and their effects. I could have lived without the little dig at the end, that aside.

1) We don't elect Kings/Queens. People get myopic. POTUS does not do write and declare laws. They most times have marginal say in writing them. Now, they can veto them, and I supposed Bill could have vetoed these bills. At the time, there still was this thing that existed where the POTUS worked with the other party to do things. And, overall the bills were reflective of what the country as a whole wanted at the time.

2) POTUS DOES get elected - first in the primary and second in the general. Clinton mostly said he would support these things when running, the voters, both democrats in the primary, and the overall electorate in the general, elected him knowing that.

Both to the point - they aren't the cause, they are the symptom. Of a country too easily swayed by right wing bullshit/too fucking apathetic to fight for the kinds of things necessary to make the country better.

That said, while Clinton and BHO were "centrist" in some ways, and certainly too cozy with big money, they did advance progressive policy positions. And, while we might be left wanting, we were infinitely better off than what we would have gotten with an R as POTUS.

Hillary, it is what it is. I knew it a year ago when this all started, there simply are more democrats who are comfortable with her/her name than they are with Bernie. It was close, Bernie made a serious run at it. But, it is a reflection of the reality that while we see those policies that clearly would better serve this country moving forward in a better way that Bernie advocates for, there are more democrats who see more in Hillary.

That isn't her fault, everyone gets to run for POTUS, witness Trump. He is a meglomaniac idiot. That is plainly clear. He isn't the issue, it's that there is a critical mass in this country fucking stupid enough to possibly make him POTUS.

[SheilaT]

72. Ending welfare is a symptom of the increased poverty?

I don't think so. Abandoning the unions? Passing legislation that allowed massive outsourcing of jobs? Those are not symptoms. They are causes.

A virus is not the symptom of say, a cold. But the runny nose is.

Yes, this country has for nearly 40 years been too easily persuaded by right-wing bullshit. But the decision to abandon the party's base, to repudiate the New Deal, those were done deliberately.

Again, read the book. It very neatly discusses all these things.

And to think Hillary is going to be just okay as President because she has the magical D after her name, is to be completely oblivious to what's happened in the past decades as well as being blind to what she herself has said and done while in public life.

[Cosmocat]

74. Again

I did not post, in any way, shape or form, the statements you infer.

They make no sense, and are reflective of arguing with someone you want to be arguing with.

It is pretty simple.

The things that you note are things that politicians run on.

Those politicians get elected.

1 + 1 =2 (this is the stuff that people voted for)

To whatever extent the powers to be in the democratic party have veered in this direction (and again, I mostly agree with that point) a BIG chunk of the democratic party is OK with it, because, you know, they vote for these people ...

Hillary isn't great, but is better than Trump, Cruz or any other R.

By a long mile.

I would prefer a strong progressive as POTUS, but absent that, I will cast the vote for the centrist, cozy with big money D vs not voting and possibly enabling worse to be POTUS.

[ReRe]

20. And odds are...

... you wasn't an adult when WJC came into office. And even if you was, the "DLC" argument is probably not going to get allot of support in this particular thread either. He sold the soul of the Democratic Party, Yavin4. He sold his soul to get elected. It was all about him. And now it's all about Hillary.

[Yavin4]

23. I was 28 when WJC came into office.

I lived through Nixon's landslide in '72. Reagan's landslide in '84, and suffered through the bitter loss of '88. Lived through them all and dealt directly with working class whites who proudly claimed to be Republican and Reagan supporters.

It was DLC or death for the Democrats.

[ReRe]

25. Total...

... and unmitigated bull shite. It was an internal Democratic Party coup, period. Can you say here and now that you knew what was going on when it happened? (re, the DLC) When WJC was elected? I didn't. And I voted for him in his first term. Had I known anything about the DLC's mission, I would not have voted at all.

[Yavin4]

28. The DLC was formed after the 1988 election.

In 1991, Bush had 90% approval rating after the Gulf War. No other Democrat wanted to even run against him. Bill Clinton was one of the few that did want to take him on.

[ReRe]

29. But what about your

soul, Yavin4? Was you always a Democrat, or did you cross over from Republican?

[Yavin4]

31. I marched with my father, a union shop steward, in labor's protest of Reagan's firing PATCO

in 1981. In 1984, those same union protestors voted for Reagan.

[ReRe]

33. Boy...

... I bet that left a big question mark in your head, didn't it? That the union workers flipped in 4 years to support Reagan? Yavin4, I understand you much better now. Thank you for having a serious conversation with me. There was a huge divide between us, but I think it is lessened now. Although we don't quite agree, I hope we can at least respect each other's view now.

[Recursion]

66. PATCO had endorsed Reagan in 1980, remember

They were pissed that Carter had deregulated the airlines.

[bjobotts]

37. Yes, they could no longer stand for civil rights or unions. They had to support the corporatocracy

Nonsense. Their changing to DLC types pushed the working man away due to the disasters it caused. Dems stopped showing up at the polls since their party went right and forgot about them. They didn't vote for Nixon, Reagan, or Bush...they didn't vote. Reagan destroyed our democracy and Cllinton continued its downfall..

[Yavin4]

42. Reagan Democrat

A Reagan Democrat is a traditionally Democratic voter in the United States, referring especially to white working-class Northerners or Midwesterners who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in either or both the 1980 and 1984 elections

The work of Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg is a classic study of Reagan Democrats. Greenberg analyzed white ethnic voters (largely unionized auto workers) in Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit. The county voted 63 percent for John F. Kennedy in 1960, but 66 percent for Reagan in 1980. He concluded that "Reagan Democrats" no longer saw the Democratic party as champions of their working class aspirations, but instead saw them as working primarily for the benefit of others: the very poor, feminists, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, and other groups.

This was 12 years before Clinton. It wasn't Clinton and the Democrats that abandoned White working class voters. It was the White working class voters that abandoned the Democratic party.


More at the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Democrat

[truebluegreen]

43. You are not going back far enough. Look at the election in '72.

[Yavin4]

44. Yep. 16 years before the DLC and 20 years before Clinton

The White working class left the Dems in droves following the Civil Rights Act and the Vietnam war.

[truebluegreen]

54. Or vice versa. Potayto Potahto

See what happened with big labor and the dems back then. However it happened though, the point is the Democratic Part--the People's Party--is not aligned with the interests of the majority of working Americans and has not been for some time. The DLC and the Clintons were more about making that official than causing it in the first place. The Democratic party has been getting by on gains in social issues, and like the Republicans have been happy to confine their efforts to that, while ignoring the economic ones and allowing the middle class to collapse. If you haven't noticed, the "working class" is getting bigger while the middle class is shrinking and both are feeling disenfranchised. So the question becomes who will harness that energy, and will it be for the good of all, or for the few? Our choices at the moment are a narcissistic fascist demagogue, a people's activist, and a proud defender of the status quo.

[Yavin4]

59. Nothing is going to change for the better until the American White working class stops being racist.

It's that simple. Europe has the social programs that it has even though they also have very racist people. They just vote their economic interests ahead of their racial prejudice.

The economic shit storm that has befallen the working and middle class in America is due to their racism.

[truebluegreen]

62. You just contradicted yourself:

1) the American white working class has to stop being racist;
2) Europe is also racist but they vote for their economic interests

Looks to me like the American white working class needs to vote for their economic interests whether or not they stop being racist. So how do we get them to do that? By focusing on economic issues--telling people to Stop Being Racist! or Bigoted! is demonstrably ineffective....unless one wants to divide the voting public into two powerless warring blocs. Then it is VERY effective.
.
.
.
.
And btw racist and bigoted BS tends to drop off when everybody has enough. Income inequality drives unrest, and scapegoating. You know the joke about the billionaire, the white guy, the black guy and the plate of a dozen cookies? Billionaire takes 11 cookies and tells the white guy that the black guy is trying to take his cookie....

[Logical]

57. Lol, i think i believe him over you. Nt

[Mark 750]

6. Being a Democrat for 44 years - he nails it.

I have heard him speak about his new book, and it sounds right on...will have to buy it.

[840high]

8. .+1

[KG]

10. cant wait for our resident conservatives to drop in to disparage this book

[Old Codger]

17. The nice thing

About having almost everyone of them on ignore is I don't have to deal with their horseshit

[Enthusiast]

46. +1 an entire horseshit load.

[alarimer]

32. They have already.

Saying Bill Clinton had no choice but to abandon the traditional Democratic Party values in order to win. Which is a premise that has been disproved again and again. Democrats do not win by imitating Republicans. They win by upholding what used to be Democratic Party principles.

Bill Clinton is an unprincipled hack.

[GoneOffShore]

36. And now it's HRC-WJC, Inc.

Working their grift and making those benjamins.

[riderinthestorm]

11. K&R! If you've read the book, there's a contingent of DUers who personify the Dem party problems nt

[chervilant]

49. Do you think it's because

cognitive dissonance keeps such unfortunates mired in denial?

I have most of these unfortunates on my IL. I'm all too familiar with their rhetoric and I do not care to hear it ad nauseum.

[riderinthestorm]

64. I'd bet $$ they haven't read it. They'll never accept his points

Cognitive dissonance sums it up.

[chknltl]

14. KnR nt

[Warpy]

30. Never forget that the Koch brothers provided seed money to start the DLC

and that the DLC has shown great talent at losing state and local elections by saddling candidates with professional "handlers" that mute the message in exchange for party funds.

Bill Clinton might be viewed as one of our worst presidents by future historians. His policies and capitulations to the extreme right increased wealth disparity far beyond anything Reagan had ever dreamed.

[haikugal]

34. They wanted to hurt Democrats and they've succeeded in doing that, very, very well. In the

Process they've hurt our country. They have to go!

[Enthusiast]

47. Huge +1!

[Enthusiast]

48. Kicked and recommended!

[B Calm]

50. K&R

[me b zola]

58. K&R

[RoccoR5955]

67. Alternative Radio

did a one hour talk with Frank. You can order the MP3 for 5bucks on alternativeradio.org
It is well worth it. If you have 8 bucks, you can get a multi-pack with 2 Thomas Frank talks here: http://www.alternativeradio.org/collections/2-pack-feature/products/frat004-girh001

Alternative Radio with David Barsamian is a great show. I haven't missed it in years.

At any rate, Frank sums up what I have been thinking about all along in his talk on AR.

[KG]

68. word. AR rocks.

[librechik]

69. CSpan video discussion of Listen Liberal with Thomas Frank HERE

http://www.c-span.org/video/?406308-1/book-discussion-listen-liberal