Listen liberal pdf download

Home Search results for: listen liberal or what ever happened to the party of the people. It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.

But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. 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's Listen, Liberal 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. I am so depressed by this book. I highly recommend it. View all 3 comments. Feb 01, Brad rated it it was amazing. Thomas Frank stirs up my aggravation with our political system as no other person can.

I read many passages of this book aloud to my wife, and both of us were like, "Damn, Thomas Frank! Tell it. Frank's dissection of the way in which meritocracy and the rise of the professional class has allowed the Democrats to turn their backs on serious issues of inequality is compelling--and scary.

It's pretty damning evidence I have to admit that this book helped me challenge my own perspective on my so-called liberalism. So glad Thomas Frank has stepped into the ring this election season. View all 4 comments. Feb 10, Sebastien rated it it was amazing Shelves: political-science , all-time-favorites. Damning critique of the neoliberal wing of the Democratic party. I pretty much agree with most heck all! Which is ok I guess, I mean, I agree with his points and his arguments but sometimes the anger is so seething that it distracts from the argument.

I guess the more emotional someone gets with their arguments the more leery I get… and I do have to say I often have trouble myself in avoiding this trap! In many respects Democrats sowed the seeds of their own destruction, and have yet to fully learn the lessons.

Over the last 40 years there is an entitled smug arrogant educated professional elite that has gained power in the Democratic party Clintons are emblematic , and their economic philosophy runs counter in many respects to core progressive economic principles. There are systematic barriers and entrenched wealth that tilts the field in favor of certain people while putting up barriers for others.

Opportunities are hoarded by elite segments of our society, there is more margin for error when one has wealth and power. Of course there are people who can transcend their lack of opportunities, economic disadvantages, and these cases are always seized upon and highlighted by the elite to showcase how the system has fluidity and fairness.

Too often meritocracy is used in this sneaky cynical way to deny people respect of their human dignity, it is used as an excuse to let people die in the street, it is used as an excuse to judge others.

Meritocracy without humanism is dangerous, callous, and frankly soulless. That's how I see it. It's a slippery slope when applied in too extreme a manner, it is a way of denying compassion and destroying man's humanity. I think the most important point that Franks hit upon was the necessity for the liberal professional cosmopolitan elites to engage in a bit more humility and yes one can argue other side could engage a bit more in this as well ha!

We consider myself part of this group need to avoid moral and intellectual grandstanding, our smug cultural arrogance often leads us to look down upon the non-educated, the rural populace, conservatives. By automatically and unequivocally viewing them as morally-backward idiotic rubes we push people away, we antagonize, we disrespect, and we preclude effective dialogue.

Not only does it not serve our interests, but it is rather disrespectful and inhumane as well! Plus, if the packaging is done right, and the messenger plays it smart, I think large segments of the working class would be open to the progressive economic agenda. But as so often happens, the suffering has to hit catastrophic levels before critical mass of people will push for major political system changes.

As always, please feel free to jump in and critique any of my thinking. View all 42 comments. Apr 08, Hana rated it it was amazing Shelves: reads , policy-politics. There was a time when America worked. Not just for the well-born and expensively educated. But for millions of working class men and women whose jobs paid enough for them to live comfortably, own a home, maybe send the kids to college.

How did we go from this? And this? To this? And this. It took a new consensus. A bipartisan consensus. Democrats like to blame it all on Ronald Reagan whose policies are not without fault. But as Thomas Frank explains in this furiously angry, brilliant book " Capital gains tax cuts. Blocking derivative securities regulation. Only the Lewinsky scandal saved Social Security from a bipartisan attempt by Clinton and Newt Gingrich to privatize the plan.

The last vestiges of hope for Detroit died with welfare reform and a crime bill that made mass incarceration the go-to solution for whatever ailed inner cities. For those left behind there was nowhere to turn, no one left to understand.

View all 23 comments. Mar 19, Dean rated it it was amazing. Hot damn. This is a gallon of lighter fluid for that liberal fire you've been stoking in your heart. Far too few writers are willing to take our own Democratic Party to task for its failings and flaws. Must read for anyone hoping for politics that value people over profits.

View 1 comment. Nov 28, Jason Pettus rated it liked it Shelves: contemporary , nonfiction , npr-worthy , smart-nerdy , politics.

Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally. Like many others, I was shocked and saddened to witness the election of Donald Trump as President last month; and given that the way he won was by tens of millions of people voting for him who had directly voted for Obama in just the last election, I thought it was high time I finally learned a little more Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.

Like many others, I was shocked and saddened to witness the election of Donald Trump as President last month; and given that the way he won was by tens of millions of people voting for him who had directly voted for Obama in just the last election, I thought it was high time I finally learned a little more about why the American electorate chose to do this in the first place besides the typical pre-election blowoff that "they're all a bunch of racist Nazis" , and so over the next few months I'll be reading a series of books recommended to me by others that supposedly help explain this.

This was the first book of the list to become available at my local library, written by the former founder of Chicago '90s liberal intellectual magazine The Baffler ; and it turned out to be half eye-opening, although unfortunately the other half turned out to be eye-rolling, leaving a mixed bag when it comes to whether to recommend it or not.

The eye-opening part, and definitely the part most worth your time, is Frank's detailed history of the Democratic Leadership Council, the organization that ultimately put Bill Clinton in the White House but that I and my fellow Generation Xers largely didn't even know existed when we voted for him in Started in the early s by a group of young idealistic hippie politicians, all of whom had attended college and all of whom received deferments from Vietnam, the group certainly started with noble intentions; tired of the old Democratic Party power base of the rural working class, the very people who supported the war and who continued to drag naked racism well into the '70s, the DLC spent twenty years systematically pushing such people out of the power structure of the party, believing instead that the "New Democrats" as they called themselves should be a party of meritocracy, educational excellence, technological innovation and embrace of big business, culminating in the '90s when they got their former leader Clinton elected as President.

This is where we get the "neoliberalist" economics that are so rapidly becoming such a villain in the wake of Trump's election win; inspired by the collapse in the '70s of Roosevelt's Keynesian "New Deal" economics into runaway government bureaucracy and hyperinflation, right in the same years the DLC was being formed, neoliberalism instead believes in radical deregulation of markets, the forced end of organized labor, and a "benevolent dictatorship" of elite Ivy-educated technocrats to rule over all the uneducated, mouthbreathing masses which, to remind you, was originally inspired by a very valid complaint, that these mouthbreathing masses were the people who pushed racism and the Vietnam War way farther into history than either should've existed.

And this just happens to be the same things the Republicans believe in too, or at least the Republican Party post as largely defined by Ronald Reagan; so, as Frank smartly explains, if it sometimes seems here in the 21st century that both parties seem to be made up of the same banker billionaires enacting the same exact blue-collar-punishing policies, that's because they are, a triumph of neoliberalism that was so all-encompassing by the '90s that no one even questioned its existence anymore, which is why I and my Generation X cohorts grew up not understanding that there was even an alternative.

All of this is really intelligent stuff, and it's worth reading this book to see how the DLC has pulled the wool over all of our eyes for so long, painting themselves as the "protector of the people" when in fact they have actually been actively hostile to anyone who doesn't have a college degree and doesn't live in a big city, a huge reason that so many self-made white-collar suburbanites turned against the party here in when it became clear that yet another neoliberal billionaire Ivy-educated technocrat was to be their official nominee.

Unfortunately, though, Frank has a lot more to say about the Democrats than this, and that's where he starts getting into eye-rolling rant territory; entire chapters devoted to what a fuckup Obama was, entire chapters devoted to how anyone who's ever been an employee of a tech startup is a sellout monster, entire chapters on how anyone who's ever recommended that a poor person try to get into college is a dead-eyed sociopath who hates the working class, with special amounts of piss and vinegar directed at such individuals as Richard Florida inventor of the term "creative class" , who Frank attacks in such a vindictive and personal way that he seems less like a political opponent and more like a jilted ex-lover.

I have a friend here in Chicago who actually went to college with Frank, and she had an illuminating story to tell me about him; how every time he would attend a party that happened to have the TV on like an election party or a movie-watching party , he would spend the whole night ranting and raving about each and every single commercial that would air, pointing to the others in the room incredulously and yelling, "Why aren't you people getting outraged about this?

Why am I the only person getting outraged about this? To be honest, that's exactly what The Baffler was like when it was being published too, which is why it was never more than a special-interest publication for philosophy majors and hipster radicals; and while Listen, Liberal is recommended for sure, if for nothing else than to get a revealing primer on neoliberalism and why it's the cause of all our current problems, that recommendation unfortunately is a limited one today, a book you need to take with a large grain of salt in order to enjoy it at its fullest.

Out of 7. View all 7 comments. Mar 23, Ben rated it liked it Shelves: united-states. A valid critique of the Democratic Party, which has been historically cast as the ally of the working man. Frank points out that recent decades have seen a shift in the party toward the center, as it embraces well-moneyed and socially liberal professionals as its new base, effectively leaving the poor behind.

While the Clinton and Obama presidencies saw many of the vital protections for the poor and working class eroded, Democratic leadership has been a boon to the wealthiest members of society. As an example, Obama's Affordable Care Act has strengthened the biggest insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The former were entrenched as permanent, ubiquitous fixtures of health care coverage for all Americans, as Obamacare made no provision for a public option. The latter threw their support behind the president in exchange for a promise that he would in no way challenge the practice of charging outrageously high prices for essential medications.

Perhaps most egregious of all, however, was the failure to hold the banks accountable for the financial crisis that all but guaranteed his election in While Frank is very effective at demonstrating the Dems' abandonment of ordinary people, his narrow focus on the struggle between management and labor leaves out a very important player: the consumer. He laments any attempts to undermine the position of unionized workers, even when those industries have become notorious for poor quality and zero accountability.

He opposes the ride-sharing app Uber, primarily because of its effect on unionized taxi drivers, rather than confronting cab companies' own failures to address significant problems in cost, convenience and comfort. In general, Frank shows a baffling hostility toward innovation and meritocracy; certainly it is a problem that millions are being left behind in the new economy but why does confronting this issue necessarily require scaling back incentives for the most creative and innovative thinkers among us?

I do not see how such quasi-Marxist zero-sum thinking can fix the broken system. These shortcomings aside, his thesis as a whole is a strong one. He does not really address the presidential campaign I get the impression that the book was all but finished several months ago but he nonetheless provides a very compelling argument to account for the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Millions of working people have been disenfranchised with the Democrats' turn to moneyed interests.

As a result, they have gravitated toward two candidates who are ideologically opposite on the two-dimensional left-right plane, and yet perfectly concordant in their shared populism.

Frank concludes the book pessimistically, questioning if the problem can ever be remedied in the current two party system. Don't look now, but those parties appear to be exploding. Amidst the rubble, let's hope a solution to inequality can be found. Apr 19, Trish rated it liked it Shelves: political-science , politics , finance , government , nonfiction , america.

Democrats lost the last presidential election, not because Trump was so good, but because the Dems were so inadequate. They acknowledge that inequality is rampant and awful, but they cannot find the conviction or imagination to do what is necessary to reverse it.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for both sides in this argument. Intellectuals are picked to solve difficult problems because they know how to approach the problems. Folks that think difficult problems are solved by wishing them away may need another look at history.

Not all intellectuals are liberal, difficult as it is to find a Republican we can call intellectual. The truth is that nothing they could possibly do in the course of a day would ever be worth such huge differentials in salary from the worker bees of the corporation. Frank is focused on the left in this book. But enough about what I think. He hits Massachusetts pretty hard he makes it funny for some of the pretty crazy political rhetoric about innovation and brain trust, and he sounds incredulous that all these smart people would believe their own hype.

They are aspiring, too. Frank is a liberal. There is a groupthink that goes along with this. Also, the incestuous relationship among the wealthy is unhealthy. He gives his main points in a YouTube video here.

View 2 comments. Dec 02, Melora rated it really liked it Shelves: listened. Even allowing for exaggeration Frank, a truly outraged liberal, piles the vituperation on here with all the fury of a betrayed lover this is a dismaying expose of the failures of the Democratic party. And I'll admit, to my shame, that I would probably have written him off as a disgruntled radical before last month's presidential election. That was an eye-opener, though, and now, along, I assume, with many others, I'm open to taking a closer look at where and how the Democrats lost credibi Wow.

That was an eye-opener, though, and now, along, I assume, with many others, I'm open to taking a closer look at where and how the Democrats lost credibility with so many of the union members and other blue collar workers who, until recently, were their faithful supporters.

I listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author, and while that was a plus in that he reads with great expression and conviction and he has a fine, clear voice , it was a drawback for pretty much the same reason well, except the fine voice part. I get it. Now can we move on? But still Since I've tended to buy into the idea of the inevitability of the loss of certain industries and the need for education to help workers prepare for employment in new fields myself, I found his tirades more tolerable and even convicting than I normally would have.

I definitely disagreed with him, or at least doubted him, on some points, but he gave me things to consider and to dig into more deeply. The book's conclusion will give a better idea than my words of what Frank is on about. The larger message is that this is what it looks like when a leftish party loses its concern in working people, the traditional number one constituency for left parties the world over. But we should also acknowledge the views of the people for whom the Democrats are all you could ask for in a political party.

I'm thinking here of the summertime residents on Martha's Vineyard. The sorts of people to whom the politicians listen with patience and understanding. It's responsive to their concerns, its representatives are respectful, and the party as a whole treats them with a gratifying deference. For them the Democrats deliver in all the conventional ways: generous subsidies for the right kinds of businesses, a favorable regulatory climate, and legal protections for their innovations While there are many great Democrats and many exceptions to the trends I've described in this book, by and large the story has been a disappointing one.

We have surveyed this party's thoughts and deeds from the 70's to the present. We've watched them abandon whole classes and regions and industries, and we know now what the results have been. Their leadership faction has no intention of doing what the situation requires. It's time to face the obvious: that the direction that the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health. Failure is admittedly a harsh word, but what else are we to call it when the left party in a system chooses to confront an epic economic breakdown by talking hopefully about entrepreneurship and innovation?

When the party of professionals repeatedly falls for bad, self-serving ideas like bank deregulation, the creative class, and empowerment through microlending? When the party of the common man basically allows aristocracy to return? Now, all political parties are alliances of groups with disparate interests, but the contradictions in the Democratic party coalition seem unusually sharp.

Worse, they combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach turning. And every two years they simply assume that being non-Republican is sufficient to rally the voters of the nation to their standard. This cannot go on. Now, in early December, the Democratic party has been knocked down in a way that makes reevaluation of its priorities and positions seem more likely.

And I hope it will. The long rants had me ready to give this three stars, but, then, it made me think about some things I've not given much thought to and I'm giving it four. View all 12 comments.

Mar 23, Keith rated it it was amazing. I viewed Bill Clinton's presidency and the Clintons generally in a mostly positive light before picking this up. I didn't realize what a huge sellout Clinton was to working class people and people of color.

It was a bit of a shock. After reading this, I feel a bit bad for laying all the blame for the financial collapse at the feet of Bush, which makes me a little sick to say, honestly. No, it was Clinton's knob job to Wall St. Thomas Frank, author of 'What's the Matter With Kansas' another great book that, although written in , is still VERY relevant today if one is looking to understand the type of "backlash" conservative thinking that has given rise to Trump and the Tea Party , has turned his razor sharp eye to the liberals.

And what he's revealed will blow your hair back. I'll just leave this right here, and quietly tip-toe out of the room They were not listening then , they're not listening now I could not get anyone else to read it. One person said he had heard all this "ad nauseum. I recently read this book, which has stories of how the Demo party lost t They were not listening then , they're not listening now I recently read this book, which has stories of how the Demo party lost the votes of many lifetime Demos.

View all 6 comments. Apr 28, Jeanette rated it liked it. Some outlooks and observations that are factual and truthful to scale at the same time. A situation less rarely seen or heard by governmental policy or announcement of their appointed czars in over a decade.

If his Frank's purpose is to inform or to rabble rouse, regardless. All of that ceased earlier than he des Some outlooks and observations that are factual and truthful to scale at the same time.

All of that ceased earlier than he designates here. Most of the core trait to tolerate and be fair in actions for difference, both which were always evident in the Democratic party for my youth and middle age? I can remember when liberal meant to tolerate and be tolerant for "other".

Not belittling for difference, nor attrition by bullying tactics a requirement of self-serving hubris and arrogance. And in applications? Those have been gone with the Dems for more than a couple decades. And now is the time for it to be noticed? The Democratic Party left the working man and woman, the middle class of strong family base, and traditional patriot citizens many years ago. It left them, they did not leave it. And where I live, that goes for both white and black patriot citizens.

The ones who go to work. Well, it hardly matters. The divide is wider than it has ever been in my lifetime. And it isn't only in income per year capita either. View all 9 comments. Mar 15, Jamie Bradway rated it it was amazing. Despite the griping about liberals I've heard my whole life, I still haven't experienced a truly liberal presidential administration. I guess it's just a favorite slur of the right, mostly devoid of meaning. Thomas Frank frequently rouses rabbles - I sometimes think that's his main goal, so I have been dismissive of his writing in the past.

However, Listen, Liberal is a concise summation of how the Democratic Party abandoned the principles of leftist governing in order to win. At least, initiall Despite the griping about liberals I've heard my whole life, I still haven't experienced a truly liberal presidential administration.

At least, initially it seemed to be a ploy to ascend; it now seems the working class is completely absent in the core philosophy of the party. If you're comfortable imagining the current Democratic establishment represents your best interests and would like to remain comfortable with that, this might not be the book for you. If you're conservative and would like to read about the failures of the supposedly opposition party, you might enjoy some of this.

If you sit firmly on the left side of the political spectrum but have trouble putting your finger on what it is that's gone so horribly wrong, this might be your book. Oct 02, W. Clarke rated it really liked it Shelves: how-d-it-come-to-this , kultur-kritik , An incredibly well-researched account of how America's "Party of the People", severed its connection with workers and average Americans, choosing to court and flatter, and appease Wall Street and Silicon Valley instead, abandoning Keynesianism for neoliberalism in the process.

This means Thomas Frank's account begins with the Humphrey and McGovern campaigns of and respectively, and ends just before Hilary Clinton goes on national TV and chides her base about expecting too much and ri An incredibly well-researched account of how America's "Party of the People", severed its connection with workers and average Americans, choosing to court and flatter, and appease Wall Street and Silicon Valley instead, abandoning Keynesianism for neoliberalism in the process.

This means Thomas Frank's account begins with the Humphrey and McGovern campaigns of and respectively, and ends just before Hilary Clinton goes on national TV and chides her base about expecting too much and ripping one from the "Basket of Deplorables" something subsequently not appreciated the working class her party had abandoned who were already in the bag for Donald J. As thoroughly documented as this narrative is, it is none the less proud to fly its partisan flag—progressive-wing Dem Mr.

Frank refuses to hide behind faux-"neutral" journalistic conventions, and freely shares his own biases and even examines them when warranted. His candor was most welcome, I think, as was his tone, which treads a fine balance between exasperated, tenacious, dyspeptic, quixotic, and despairing.

The problem, as Frank sees it at one point, is "I've got the wrong liberalism": raised to expect a Democratic party that was connected, however tentatively and intermittently, to the achievements of Roosevelt's depression-era New Deal, instead he becomes a spectator at the dismantling of the welfare state, the rise of the prison-industrial complex, and the enshrining of corporate rights with NAFTA, Citizens United, etc.

That this was all the work of establishment Democrats and not some bogey-ish Republican Party who did help the process along, of course will come as a surprise to many liberals, who by the end of the book will surely cry foul over what has been done in their name.

At least, I hope they will, as it will be fairly hard for them to argue with all the facts on display here concerning the Obama, Clinton, and even the Carter administrations. It ain't a pretty sight, folks. Also known as the technocratic PMC or Professional Managerial Class, it arrogates to itself a veneer of virtue and of earned merit, even as it rigs its so-called "meritocracy" to insure its own self-reproduction.

A fitting companion to similarly searing works by Curtis White and Chris Hedges, this book will show you how we got from "there" full employment, a social safety net, a comparatively-tamed Wall St. For example, didya know that, just as chairperson Bill Clinton instructed the Democratic Leadership Council to sever all ties with New Deal-ism in , in that very same year Mr.

Blair displayed that audacity of hope when, in the pages for Socialism Today no less, he celebrated the ubiquity and naturalism and lifts-all-boatsism of the capital-M "Market" Surely such synchronicity deserves, at the very least, an invisible and inaudible hand!

Nov 20, Wick Welker rated it it was amazing Shelves: politics , nonfiction , nonfiction-favorites. A well worn but well-done diatribe against liberal establishment. Frank uses both a scalpel and a hacksaw as he completely dismantles the myth of virtue from the democratic party and how it has moved away from being the party of the people to the slightly less right party of corporate interest.

A profound observation for me was that the liberal class is the professional class. While quite obvious at face value, this statement explains so much. The liberal professional class has morphed the democr A well worn but well-done diatribe against liberal establishment. The liberal professional class has morphed the democratic party into a bunch of technocratic wonks who bask in their own meritocracy. One of the harsh natures of a meritocratic state is that there is no inter-class solidarity.

We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

DMCA and Copyright : The book is not hosted on our servers, to remove the file please contact the source url. If you see a Google Drive link instead of source url, means that the file witch you will get after approval is just a summary of original book or the file has been already removed. Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to politics, non fiction lovers. Your Rating:.