Thomas Frank - Inequality and Populism: The Vicious Circle

Thomas Frank provides a brief history of right-wing populism and speaks about his observations of the 2016 election and his analysis of the failings of liberalism.
Thomas Frank is the founder of The Baffler Magazine and the author of Listen Liberal, What's the Matter with Kansas?, The Conquest of Cool, and Pity the Billionaire.
This event was hosted by ASU's School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and was held at The Marston Exploration Theater in Tempe, Arizona on March 16, 2018.

[@PortlandsTransport]

Thomas Frank is beyond brilliant in this analysis

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

yep he just needs to include abrupt global warming and the ESAS methane bomb and Global Dimming.

[@PortlandsTransport]

Voidisyinyang Voidisyinyang indeed!

[@redpillrevival736]

Too bad so tragically wrong

[@ericreining5540]

Thomas Frank is a fantastic writer. What's The Matter With Kansas and Listen, Liberal are both great reads, and really open your eyes to the only issue that really matters in American politics and economics: the perpetual struggle between workers and corporations.

[@shamus2198]

Tom Frank nails it. Brilliant.

[@MichusDanether]

Sheesh. Thomas Frank for president already.

[@HaoSci]

1:04:36 ...You have to take over the party. You cannot reason with them.

[@cozycomfy589]

I always learn so much listening to him. Thanks for this post

[@RicoCordova]

This is why it's important to have a floating mic. What are the questions?

[@guillermorivas7819]

The elephant in the room is that our socioeconomics has become Libertarian. Both political parties in the USA focus to varying degrees of Libertarianism (repackaged as neoliberalism for the Democratic Party) such as: LGBTQ rights, free trade, open borders, professional class, money in politics, pro-millionaires, pro-business, pro-entrepreneurial, and pro-immigration. The Republican Party, on the other hand, is genuinely Libertarian with economics nowadays. Although Trump is tinkering with 1900s populism that Teddy Roosevelt implemented and spoke about. It is safe to say that outside of Trump, many Republicans are very much Libertarian regarding economics but traditional on the social issues.

[@spiceinsights]

In some ways, Thomas Franks’ BEST talk

[@Thunderchief-rt3gt]

As Mark Blythe put it, "Trump's election was a rejection of technocracy".

[@free_at_last8141]

I love listening to Thomas Frank, it's good to see that he's cut down on his "you know" habit.

[@thetawaves48]

Democrats had to consider their corporate donors too much.

[@thetawaves48]

Even NPR acted like they never heard of Bernie Sanders.

[@theciakilledjfk5973]

NTR tells you where they get their money from if you listen to it. It shouldn't be surprising that they ignore Sanders and push certain mainstream narratives.

[@jcsrst]

I know! I am done with them too.

[@cozycomfy589]

Instead of saying the working class we should call it the struggling class

[@robertr.hasspacher7731]

struggling if you're bad with money...by and large

[@robertpoen5383]

Re the professional class. In Kennedy's time they were called the best and the brightest. They gave us the Vietnam War.

[@anthonyfromsiny]

Right at the end he repeats Michael Lind's observation - from his two bestsellers of the '90s, "The Next American Nation" and "Up From Conservatism: Why The Right Is Wrong With America" - that the definition of a neoliberal is a liberal on social issues, but a conservative on economic issues (though rarely to the point of outright Social Darwinism).

[@martinsatyen7833]

"Intersectionality" woman...*facepalm*

[@thetawaves48]

Does anyone in your audience know who Richard Trumka is? Do you?

[@shawnaweesner3759]

American Democracy started as a movement of the working class, but today it is the party of highly educated professionals. The first belief of the New Democratic Party is Meritocracy = everybody gets what they deserve, and that is defined by education. The only answer to every problem is more education. Basically, it’s the Democratic Party’s answer to reducing inequality, but the Democratic Party is just rationalizing inequality, NOT reducing it. The blame for being poor is pushed back on the individual!

[@drichi07]

It's hard come up with the connection between inequality and wars? Who fights the wars?

[@albertricks1927]

In America the candidate for President, like the elected President, can be the ideal perfect guy or gal: every hair in place, always faithful to their spouse, etc. It'll never be. Why the issue over personality? Politics goes deeper than we can fully fathom & appreciate. Do you 'qualify' for office , or is it always determined by your popularity factor?

[@aleidacubides7751]

Artesanal charcoal it is make digging wood close or under bonfire, the wood with time becomes manmake charcoal. Thank you for you lecture, it made me think about the way how civilians have to respond to the financial sistem to get our common sense back.

[@o0xst]

Honestly a terrific crowd. Aren't clapping and laughing non-stop at everything like they are watching the big bang theory and having to laugh or leave the studio audience... really good stuff...

[@martinsatyen7833]

Outstanding Good Sir. Outstanding

[@891156]

I can never get enough of Thomas Frank.

[@liberalmike27]

I think the lady was wrong about FDR's New Deal not helping black people. She's right that he didn't do much of anything to help prejudices or assuage bigotry. But a lot of black people from FDR to JFK/LBJ started moving from voting for Republicans to Democrats. And part of the reason was that New Deal programs did help a lot of black people as well. I've read that in a few different books.

[@Achrononmaster]

@1:16:00 there's a clear overwhelming relationship between US foreign policy and wealth inequality. Who was it,.. General Butler I think, who said "War is a racket". He was right. War is these days a for-profit non-productive industry. There is huge production of weapons and jobs in the military and counter-intelligence community of course, but it is not socially useful production, and what the military produces is typically used to destroy resources (but in _other_ countries), so i regard it as net non-productive.

[@ryhuang7845]

Thank You - great and hilarious speech.

[@perfectibility999]

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was enormous inequality between workers and owners and the politics was generally right wing. There were left-wing movements in labor, but they didn't even start to gain traction until Teddy Roosevelt in the U.S., and then WWI and the Roaring Twenties put things right back in the hands of the overlords. It wasn't until FDR that things began balancing out in a big way. If it follows that pattern again, we have to keep in mind it's been only about 40 years since inequality began rising again the U.S., and we could have maybe a half century to go before something explodes and rights the ship.

[@rhmendelson]

That is kinda freaky if you think about it! The US is so predicated on the American Dream I wonder if folks are afraid if the country goes too left it would squash that possibility? Also, I think a lot of US people want to take credit for making it themselves.

[@robertpoen5383]

In 2009 Obama should have nationalized the auto industry and retooled it to build a nationwide high speed rail system. Noam Chomsky pointed this out at the time. Nobody listened.

[@williamjameslehy1341]

The woman who gets mad at 1:07:24 sounds like one of those 'If Hillary had won, we'd be at brunch right now' cretins.

[@g.j.koster1986]

This man's has a lot of potential

[@thetawaves48]

nobody talked about Bernie Sanders except for the kids.

[@mrfuzztone]

Have to change that in 2019 and 2020

[@cameronmackay2072]

this same guy would be the first to promote the destruction of pipelines and the oil and gas industry in a salute to his global warming religion.

[@herkaderka9225]

In the 1960s Democrats were attempting top build a "Poor and Minorities" coalition. The perfect counter punch to Nixon's racist southern strategy. Left gentrification killed "Poor and Minorities" ideal before it had a chance to develop into the political powerhouse it could have been.

[@brucemarmy8500]

Creeping corruption killed the kindness

[@marthacooper3250]

I wonder.. follow the money. Did left gentrification have such a hold on politics before the citizens united ruling?

[@zonmoy]

it has had a hold on politics since carter at earliest but definitely when bill Clinton rose to become the leader of the right wing democrats that hijacked the party.

[@anthonyfromsiny]

The left's mollycoddling of criminals (and of the Communists in Southeast Asia) turned white ethnics in and around the northern cities against the Democrats - remember the saying "A conservative is a liberal who just got mugged?" And, at the height of Wall Street orgy of greed, "A woman simply isn't afraid to walk on Wall Street at night because she thinks she might get insider-traded."

[@foxbodyblues6709]

lol. racist southern strategy

[@DougGrinbergs]

1:41 two years since "Listen, Liberal" released

[@jacqueline755]

I do not understand how stupid we are- we,ve all but nominated the most uninspiring nominee. His only advantage will be that he’s not likely to be rattled by Trump. But wily like a fox-. he ain’t.

[@deanjohnson6074]

He has a partial understanding of the real estate credit bubble and the ensuing financial crisis. It was joint effort by the TBTF banks, the FED, and the GSEs Fannie & Freddie. The GSE's were the biggest recipients of bailout funds from TARP. Subprime loans sunk the GSEs along with the TBTF banks. Real estate bears no resemblance to the free market. The FED bought $2 trillion in MBS in order to buoy the real estate market & recapitalize the banks (quantitative easing). The mortgage interest deduction is also a direct subsidy to real estate. Inequality worsened subsequent to the financial crisis because capital, ie stocks & real estate, was heavily subsidized by the FED and the government, although the intervention did stave of a potential great depression. If you own stocks and real estate you're doing great, but if you don't, you're not doing so well. Capital is expensive and will eventually revert to the mean.

[@mns8732]

@ 1:20.00 he's spot on.

[@awuma]

Beautifully presented lecture. 36:50 "Democrats are the party of highly educated professionals". This is fully confirmed by Thomas Piketty not only for the US Democrats, but also for Labour in the UK, Socialists in France. Search for "Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality & the Changing Structure of Political Conflict...", a study released in March 2018. However, while the economic class argument is very compelling (Mark Blyth also presents it well), it neglects the cultural, religious and tribal factors which are so well exploited by the Right, and have been shown in some studies as having been more significant than the very real economic issues in the 2016 election.

[@jbrown2905]

To your point; after watching several of this gentleman’s presentations it’s conspicuous that he totally omits the significance of the array of disruptive social issues that continue to irritate and offend so many people. Those issues are possibly even more motivating than economic matters illuminated by Frank.

[@ian4040]

Of course a woman in the audience brings up "intersectionality"...one of the nonsensical ideas that many on the Left focus on, which divides people up into all of these separate groups instead of creating an umbrella that encompasses all working class people.

[@pathocrat]

You're right, every other word out of Bernie's mouth is intersectionality.

[@jop23ify]

The woman makes a great point. The Roselvelt new deal was great but black people did not benefit from it as they were not included in the deal. This is an important aspect that the lefties never talk about. How does a new new deal address the generational poverty after a majority of black people had everything taken away from them? Does a new new deal address police brutality, or does it address a real black agenda?

[@tarnopol]

The thing is, the sane and non-weaponized version of intersectionality is simply common sense: it means that people should keep things like race, gender, orientation, AND CLASS firmly in mind when making policy and doing politics-if we’re all progressives, that is. Now, I agree, that if you take the identity politics stuff too far, as it actually has been on all sides (what is Trump but white identity politics?), it’s divisive and red meat to charlatan politicians to divide and rule. I do agree that class is usually, but nowhere near always, the most important consideration for a national movement and party. But we needn’t throw the good stuff symbolized by that term over the side just because some college kids are too enamored of it or that Hillary weaponized it.

[@tarnopol]

That’s absolutely true, sexsex, and the funny thing is no progressive really has a problem with a new New Deal including everyone. Unite the many against the few-that’s how you win in politics, especially left-politics, which has mostly only people power on its side.

[@tarnopol]

ian4040, that’s just flat-out false, top to bottom. It’s really not that hard: if you’re a working-class white person, you’ve definitely been fucked, all other things being equal. If you’re a working-class black (or other nonwhite) person, all other things being equal, you’ve been fucked more. On the statistical level, but also in terms of individual experiences. I for one don’t feel the need to pit one group of the fucked against another group of the fucked. Empathy is important.

[@RAWDernison1]

53:22 profetic words (revisit nov 2020)

[@msb4838]

So by his definition, at 1:23:00, teachers and cops are labor? Is participation in a union by definition labor? Or, at least, there's solidarity?

[@eugenedebs9547]

Thomas Frank- everything else is propaganda- Our Naomi Klein

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

"Take them to the woodshed"? I wish you hadn't done that, I'm gonna have to put you down....

[@romlyn99]

I agree about that lack of solidarity in white collar work - I have experienced first hand... and this is by design... the corporation purposefully isolates them. It is a science in HR of big corporations... but at the very top - as they fire the CEO - he (typically a white male) leaves with a golden parachute - One example - Chuck Prince the CEO of Citigroup in 2007 left with a $120 million exit package and this doesn't include the stocks he already owned or the stock options he had.

[@hmldjr]

This guy is the new prophet we have been waiting for.

[@tomrecane6366]

48:35. Nonsense. In the tech world nobody cares where you went to school. I can’t remember the last time anyone I worked with even mentions it.

[@thetawaves48]

Silly Con Valley.

[@bvkronenberg6786]

Increase outsourcing manufacturing to China and all the problems will be solved.

[@gking407]

Guessing Obama was thinking about future opportunities for black politicians aspiring to be president when he caved to the bankers. He took one for the “team” it seems. Not an excuse for what he did but I get it.

[@thetawaves48]

The "gravity of the right" is where corporate power is.

[@kallekreuzberg7376]

It’s a telling indictment of the intellectual state of public discourse in the US that Frank gives a talk consisting of fairly obvious and straightforward observations and tons of commenters call him a genius. Not attacking anyone praising him; just reflecting on the shower of total idiots who establish a norm that would make him appear thus.

[@onomatopoeia162003]

polar opposite of the dixiecrats. Being economically conservative and socially liberal toward the end XD

[@gengiz80]

Why has it happened... white racism in America that's why. Older white moderates who benifited from the reforms of fdr told a younger multi cultural diverse generation to be patient and nominated Hillary. Democratic moderates don't see their own failures

[@dawal.992]

Looks like Bill Maher's live Real Time audience all got here.

[@richardburt9812]

Truly remarkable that he loses his composure--momentarily--around 42:20. At the word "frustration." Frank is a very customer, so that moment tells you something.

[@richardburt9812]

very cool customer

[@glm4054]

💔🇺🇸💔🇺🇸💔💔💔💔🌠🌠🌠

[@thetawaves48]

see Chalmers Johnson.

[@danielyruby8696]

Also doesn't help having wide open borders and employers hiring people without documents. Wages are lowered and competition is fierce for jobs.

[@thomaseliason8376]

I take it, you would like to work picking strawberries ?

[@8301TheJMan]

Undocumented Immigrants are not the reason we have falling wages, Obama expelled more than Bush ever did and we are continually increasing the amount of people deported to make it a net 0 number of people illegally coming to the US. What's killed wages is making it so that money can jump borders without any repercussion, IE - free trade. U can lock-down the border all you want and that wouldn't do a damn thing about the fact that a business can close up shop if the wages here are too high, and move across that border wall and set up shop there for a significantly reduced wage for it's new employees. In fact without undocumented immigrant labor, much of our economy would collapse. They are doing jobs not even the poorest in the US would be willing to take money to do.

[@danielyruby8696]

People will shovel shit if it pays... Thus the reason employers; especially in agriculture prefer illegals... they can pay them next to nothing... Regarding moving money across borders... I live in Bogota Colombia.. receiving money even through Western Union isn't as simple as you think.. You need to provide your finger prints, and answering an ever increasingly longer list of questions....

[@danielyruby8696]

Work is work. If it pays people will do it. No one liked working in a foundry until Henry Ford paid them $5 a day... then the entire South came north for that wage. People, myself included, will do anything if the price is right.

[@onomatopoeia162003]

Reagan did that in 86'

[@CaptMikey-vc4ym]

Isn't the term "creative class" just another way of saying "Eugenics", a concept offensive in the extreme? By that reasoning it would say my dad was only "bred" to fight in a war and be a construction worker. He was smarter than any doctor or lawyer you could ever meet. Tom has something the Dem elite does not have, compassion.

[@christophergood2314]

An awful lot of awful things have been said about Republicans and race relations. However, the Left's accusations of racism couldn't be further from the truth that has played out in the halls of Congress over the last 150 years. It is shocking that as talk of statues and historical racism is being bandied about, no one has mentioned the Democrats' utterly shameful treatment of African Americans throughout history. Over the last 100 years, Republicans have stood up for African Americans while Democrats not only stood on the sidelines, but in fact served as obstructionists to civil liberties. Here are at least 12 examples in which Democrats voted against African Americans, and Republicans voted to free them: Democrats voted against every piece of civil rights legislation in Congress from 1866 to 1966 - a whopping 100 years. That is a dismal record for today's Democrats who would like you to believe that history has been on their side on this issue. It hasn't. Democrats voted to keep Africans Americans in slavery, opposing the 13th Amendment which officially freed the slaves. Only four Democrats voted for it. Republicans also passed the 14th Amendment which granted slaves U.S. citizenship; Democrats voted against it. Republicans also passed the 15th Amendment which gave slaves the right to vote. Not a single one of the 56 Democrats in Congress voted for it. Shame on them. Furthermore, Republicans passed all of the Civil Rights laws of the 1860s - including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 following the Civil War. The Republican Party itself was founded as the "anti-slavery party" in 1854. The party subsequently gave us President Abraham Lincoln and ultimately, the Emancipation Proclamation which led to the liberation of slaves. Republicans supported African Americans not only in the 1800s, but in modern times as well. In the 1960s, with the exception of Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was instrumental in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the truth is that Democrats were the largest single blockade to civil rights. But don't take my word for it. Long after slavery was over, the Democratic Party continued down their path to deny African Americans their rights. Wikipedia refers to this as the era of "disenfranchisement" when "Democrats worked to exclude blacks" from civil liberties. PBS reported, "The Democratic Party identified itself as the 'white man's party' and demonized the Republican Party as being 'Negro dominated,' even though whites were in control." The Democratic Party was responsible for passing Jim Crow laws, in addition to Black Civil Codes that forced Americans to utilize separate drinking fountains, swimming pools, and other facilities in the 20th century. Even Democratic icons such as Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Al Gore, Sr., D-Tenn., also opposed it. But you don't hear the "antifa" movement or anyone else on the Left talking about Democrats' shameful involvement in American history, nor do many speak of Republicans' brave work on behalf of African Americans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, appointed Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren who penned the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended school segregation forever. It was also a Republican, Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois (the "Land of Lincoln"), who wrote numerous pieces of legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which banned discrimination in housing. It was Republican President Richard M. Nixon who introduced the "Philadelphia Plan" that serves as the blueprint for affirmative action today. It was Republican President Ronald Reagan who in 1984 signed into law the holiday now known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. That's right, these were Republicans - not Democrats. As more "antifa" protests are expected this summer and into the fall, leading up to their night of hell planned for November 4, it is vitally important that revisionist history is not permitted to be foisted upon Americans. The truth about who was on the right side of history and who was in the wrong lies in the voting records and those records lie in the National Archives and the Library of Congress. No amount of statue-toppling nor spin from the Left can ever erase it.

[@kazparzyxzpenualt8111]

So when did we go through the looking glass?

[@foxbodyblues6709]

Franks acts like the period 1945-1970 is the norm, rather than a Black Swan, not to be repeated time in US history. No competition for the US, big govt, big business, and big labor. Franks hates Walmart because their clerks are not union clerks.

[@sandygreenleaf6586]

FOR the working class. Don't you mean TO them?

[@edwardmorley1802]

trump did run once b4

[@claudiasutton8240]

Get a trade there will be trades that won’t disappear from AI

[@thetawaves48]

we have 750+ military bases all over the world.

[@thetawaves48]

we need Ike Eisenhower back

[@captainpawpawchannel]

I agree on a lot of things, but "the gravity of discontent pulls to the left, not to the right"... mmmm... Franco, Mussolini, Hitler? I don't call it the "left"

[@8301TheJMan]

Thee were movements to the left in those countries too, but the problem was that the establishment governments at the time were in craze over fear of a possible red-rebellion and had spent the better part of a decade beating the left in those countries while giving little to no attention to the rising rightwing movements. That's why those movements and Stalinism in Russia, are what are known as counterrevolutionary movements. As the initial outcry and revolt is subdued and subverted, the push-back remains, it just is redirected in the opposite direction and the cause is eventually officially co-opted by these counter-revolutionary forces/leaders.

[@captainpawpawchannel]

I know, not only the establishment let the right movements grow, but, most of the time, they support them to counter the left movements

[@wibarm]

Yet - he still supports the Democratic Party? Why?

[@kaneo3243]

We now know how to lose to Trump. It's Russia!

[@KnaveChild]

The Jewish bankers run the whole show.

[@andreawisner7358]

Good for the woman at 1:06:25. I an skeptical about Frank for various reasons, but one is that he looks at people like FDR as heroes to the American people, but they are much less than that. They did what they had to do to keep the existing system in place. Otherwise, things for the white middle and upper classes would have fallen apart. That may not have been a bad thing. In that sense, they are almost anti-heroes. His response was that Black people got something in the 60s. Wow, a decade or two of something, that was for many little if anything. Certainly didn't end racism. Nope, sorry, Mr. Frank. You and your PhD don't impress me much.

[@anthonyfromsiny]

Yes, FDR didn't dare take on Jim Crow - and in 1939 he refused to let an ocean liner carrying 900 Jewish refugees from the Nazis land here. But the reason he didn't do the "right" thing in these two cases is because if he did, he would have lost the support of the white South and the heavily German-American Midwest, respectively - and the whole New Deal probably would have been repealed.

[@stevemojo2638]

Vietnam was not about bailing out French colonialism, it was about stopping the spread of communism. Iraq was about liberalization of the arab world & the yellow cake.;))

[@8301TheJMan]

It had to do with maintaining a fixture of western domination in that part of the world. It had to do with US Imperialism and how we had a chance to gain a nation that we could lord over economically and geo-politically.

[@kazparzyxzpenualt8111]

Read the War Council

[@norgler584]

Dear Thomas, you should stop this for some time, it's grinding you down.

[@Nabish1]

Wrong Thomas Frank

[@airmark02]

ok Man-Spider , whatever you say ~ lol,....