Liberalism & Conservatism, Practical Politics, U.S. Politics & Government - General & Miscellaneous, Political Parties - United States

The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule

Name: The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
Author: Thomas Frank
ISBN: 9781427204554

by Thomas Frank, Thomas Frank (Narrated by), Oliver Wyman (Narrated by)

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Overview

From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate—and lucrative—conservative misrule

In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us.

Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters—the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff.

It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.

Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet—and his most important.

About the Author, Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter With Kansas? and One Market Under God, is also the founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper’s. Recipient of a Lannan nonfiction prize, he has been a guest columnist for The New York Times and frequently writes for Harper’s, The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, among others. He lives, of course, in Washington, D.C.

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Editorials

Michael Lind

The Wrecking Crew is a polemic, not a dissertation. With rare exceptions like John Kenneth Galbraith, conservatives—from Juvenal and Alexander Pope to H. L. Mencken, Tom Wolfe and P. J. O'Rourke—have been the best satirists. In Thomas Frank, the American left has found its own Juvenal.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Frank paints a complex and conspiracy-ridden picture that illuminates the sinister and controversial practices of the Republican party in the 20th and 21st centuries. While Frank's assessments and interpretations of key events, players and party doctrines is accurate and justifiable, his overwhelming blame of the Republican Party as the source of everything that's wrong with this county and as the emblem of self-destructing government denies the Democrats and the citizenry their roles in a decaying democracy. Wyman's matter-of-fact delivery hints at the obviousness of Frank's words, but provides enough enthusiasm to make listeners believe he, too, is invested in Frank's message. His emphasis and vigor keep the text enjoyable, long after the rant of Republican despotism has become excessive. A Metropolitan Books hardcover (Reviews, May 26). (Aug.)

Kirkus Reviews

A refreshingly no-holds-barred exegesis on the naked cynicism of conservatism in America by The Baffler founder and political observer Frank (What's the Matter with Kansas?, 2004, etc.). When conservatives rule, all hell breaks loose, the author amply demonstrates in this muckraking, well-reasoned account. The concept of a conservative state is not new, he writes: Business largely laid the foundation of this country and developed a steadfast commitment to the ideal of laissez-faire, as well as hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor and state ownership. Since the Reagan revolution, however, and especially since George W. Bush came to office, the conservative pattern of deregulation, tax cuts, privatization and outsourcing has massively enriched "everyone who grabbed as the government handed off its essential responsibilities to the private sector." Despite holding executive or legislative power over the last 28 years, conservatives champion themselves as insurgent outsiders, notes Frank; yet Washington has become a developers' and lobbyists' city, grown hugely affluent by tearing down the government. The author traces conservatism's triumph through two innovations: the "adversarial fantasy" (see above) and the fantastic potential for turning politics into a source of profit (e.g., direct mail and Iran Contra). The right's fortunes depend on robust public cynicism toward government, so conservatives fill the bureaucracy with cronies, hacks, partisans and creationists, ensuring lousy management and little or no regulatory enforcement. Frank's look at how conservatism mimics its enemies-the federal government is now bigger, not smaller-is hilariously spooky, as is his chapter onlobbyists, "City of Bought Men." Clear-eyed and occasionally sarcastic, he offers examples of such howlers as conservatives' rationalization of apartheid in South Africa, the depredations of Angolan guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi, labor exploitation in Saipan and the right's blatant goal to defund and destroy the pillars of liberalism. A forceful argument that resurrecting equitable, intelligent government starts with understanding how the present plutocracy came about.

The Barnes & Noble Review

It makes perfect sense to Thomas Frank that George W. Bush would refer to himself as a "dissident in Washington" despite being behind the biggest executive branch power grab this side of Nixon. Conservatives, in what Frank calls a "supremely cynical maneuver," paint themselves as revolutionaries and outsiders even when they're running things; that way, they never have to take responsibility for government's mistakes and can point to those mistakes as proof that government doesn't work. In this nervy, brainy, no-holds-barred book, the liberal commentator argues that the "fantastic misgovernment" we live under -- his examples include the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the administration of Iraq -- is "the consequence of triumph...by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society." With the sharp analysis and scathing wit that characterized his 2004 bestseller, What's the Matter with Kansas?, Frank covers the decimation of the civil service in favor of outsourcing (the current administration actually tried to "contract out the job of supervising contractors"), the demolition of the regulatory state, and the use of deficit spending to paralyze the government. Frank entertains even as he alarms: he describes right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin as having "the appearance of a Bratz doll but the soul of Chucky," and similar gems pop up on nearly every page. But the overall tone is ominous, with Frank warning that even if the Democrats win the White House, it will require "years of hard political work" to return the government to the people. --Barbara Spindel