As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in a strict conservative home. So picking up a book critical of the democratic party should be right up my alley, right? Spoiler – it was!
The democratic party should be the party of the people, the working class. But why do so few of the democrats in office stand up for the people who voted them in?
Listen, Liberal goes into the history of the liberal party and how it has consistently (and for several years) let the people down while lining their pocket with the same funds that the conservative party has been criticized for taking.
I have tried to explain this whenever the democrats lose a race (which they so often do). At each exit poll after an election, the ‘take away’ is never “How can we more align ourselves with what the people need?” but rather “Well, the Republicans won, so I guess we should adopt more conservative stances”. So the pendulum never quite gets to a place of progressive values. It’ll swing as far to the right as conservatives can get away with, but the liberals (in fear of another loss?) keeping moving right of center and let their constituents down in the process. And then wonder why they keep losing elections. How do we ever get to a point of progress when the needle stays on one side.
Thomas Frank talks about all of this in a straight forward way. Politics can be overwhelming. Especially if the last civics lesson you had was years (or decades) ago and you have to recall the Schoolhouse Rock song to remind yourself how a bill is passed. You’ll appreciate his way of laying out where and how the democrats lost their way.
It’s disheartening to realize that we basically have two conservative parties running the show. Especially when people seem to vote for progressive policies on the local and state level but still seem to have conservatives in office. I think it’s a messaging problem but whenever we have someone who points out that problem or tries to help – they are shut down, criticized or pushed out. We have seen this time and time again. Most recently, after Zohran Mamdani won the primary for NYC mayor. Establishment democrats seemed hesitant to endorse Mamdani and were critical of the candidate instead of realizing that he might just be representing what the people in NYC want. Worth mentioning that he is (as of early Aug) polling higher than all the other candidates.
Side note – I am fascinated by watching RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) in action. It was on my local ballot in 2024 and both parties ran ads against it. I really wanted to see it pass, but it did not. I’m sure it will be on the ballot again and hope that having such a notable race like the NY Mayoral race show that it can work. The ads against RCV in my state said that it was ‘too confusing’ and that people won’t understand. Which is hilarious because a) we aren’t dumb and b) we literally rank and score everything all the time. Who doesn’t love a top ten list? If ads were honest, they would say ‘we’re against this because when rank voting happens, we don’t win’.
You can tell a lot about RCV by who is against it and why. Interestingly enough, I counted 17 states (all ‘red states’) who prohibited the use of RCV through legislation. All within the last few years. Some of which did so after it was passed in a municipality within the state, blocking its adoption all together. If you’re interested, you can read some of the academic studies of RCV on Ballotpedia.
Listen Liberal was written in 2016, well before Mamdani won the NYC mayoral primary. But history has a way of repeating it self because in 2016, democrat’s ire was geared at Bernie Sanders. Thomas Frank writes:
“Sanders was a living symbol of what the Democrats used to stand for, and party leaders didn’t seem to appreciate being reminded of how far they had strayed.”
One thing I’m learning in my reading is that while names and faces change – little else does.
I highly recommend this book. It’s worth the read, or the listen. If you’re like me and you have a lot of conservatives in your life – this book can be a great conversation starter. Frank is quite critical of Clinton (both of them) and Obama throughout the book. Which could make it easy to discuss politics or current affairs at your next gathering. Just don’t do what I did, which was mention that Obama, who is the most progressive president we’ve had, is still slightly ‘right of center’. Did not go over well. Hahaha… oops.
RAD Rating:
One last quick quote from Thomas Frank:
“Even if Democrats do succeed, it won’t save us.”
It might be time we save ourselves. It has been for a while now.
Stay RAD and keep reading!
Byeeee
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