Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? | 
The right has 'family values' and the left has 'social justice' and no matter where you stand in these two camps you have to acknowledge that poor people are being screwed by both. If you haven't read What's the Matter with Kansas - read these two together. Frank lays it all out. It's not the dems vs the GOP, it's the elite vs everyone else. Our refusal to acknowledge the American class system is a big part of what is strangling our middle class.
Library book sale part three of three, the #nonfiction version. I didn't find much but I'm particularly glad to have a copy of the tagged book. Hopefully more nonfiction in the next two sales.
#librarybooksale #bookhaul #happybibliophage
pickAn excellent, incisive, well-researched look at where the Democratic Party when wrong. Frank sometimes struggles when it comes to talking about the intersection of class with race, something he shares with many progressives, but his argument is otherwise compelling, and paints a brutal picture for the Obama/Clinton legacy and certain core liberal values. A decisive, readable call to arms for the modern liberal wondering where it all went so wrong.
pickThis is a progressive call to arms. Frank's journalism is incisive and hilarious. He argues that the Democrats' classist myopia alienated the working class and ignores inequality. Yuppie professionals and an inbred managerial class of Ivy League overlords rule gov't. Frank's evisceration of the Clinton years is a goddamn bloodbath. It is a diatribe against the masters of the universe, a self-interested class of rich elites, and how they blew it.
This is next in my TBR pile (shown here with my current WIP,) but my brain hurts right now from all the political drama. I may need to go to the library and pick up something fluffy to give my soul a rest.
Thomas Frank is insightful and hilarious. This take on the shift of the Democratic Party's base in the 1970s from the working class to professionals is cracking me up.
pickRead this for my #TrumpedUpReadingList
Was exactly what I'm looking for -- a book to help with the question: what are we missing?? A great place to start to unravel this question. Other books I've read flesh out many of the issues Frank raises. (The New Jim Crow, for example) Wish I had read this one first!
Next up on the #TrumpedUpReadingList !
pickpolitical audio I chose this book because of the pointy finger the day before the US election. a third of the way through the book and Tuesday was making sense. now finished, Facebook in a flame war of unfriending, and all I want is for people to read this book. I am not American. I have NO political agenda but to understand. This book was able to put so much context to the how. read it even if your don't agree. it may shed some light on why. +
Starting this one today. Seems pretty good timing given the current state of politics in the US!
pickIf you love something you always want to see it improve and this sometimes requires some introspection. This book posits that the D party has left behind the blue collar workers in favor of the ‘professional‘ class. To get back to populist priorities, the party must work to fix economic inequality.
I started reading this and just couldn't stick with it. Might have been a deficiency in my sleep levels rather than any indication of the books quality. What I did read seemed important and the rest was promising.
