In his book “Listen Liberal or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People” Thomas Frank explores the last century of the Democratic Party in America. Being a liberal himself, Frank gives an insider view to the democratic party and its failures. I commend him for tackling this feat because most people would not be able to do the same about their respective party. I agree with a lot of things that have been brought to light in this book, such as the abandonment of the blue collar middle class for the white collar “professional class”, that the Democratic Party does not practice what it preaches , and that the leadership of the Democratic Party is not bothered by inequality as much as they project to be . These are all things that the Republican
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Being a Republican, most people would think that this is an easy claim to get behind just because I am a member of the main opposing party. However, after seeing the various examples that Frank lists I am in fact quite convinced in what he has to say on the matter. Although, I will admit that over the years I have seen many examples of hypocrisy within my own party, but that’s politics. No matter what party, you cannot avoid hypocrisy because when parties evolve and parts of their beliefs change it is easy to see it as a betrayal of their core values that built the party which, is exactly what Frank believes that modern liberals have done. Claiming that this change started in the 1970s when the Democratic Party changed the way that it nominated candidates for president, and chose George McGovern. This is when it is identified when Democrats started pushing the need for higher education and started trying to appeal to the “professional class”. Because McGovern’s campaign started the careers of a lot of the new generation democrats they too believed that in order to succeed that there was a need for higher education. Both of my parents attended college in the 1980s. They both rememberer what a big push there was in their communities and even within their own families to receive a higher education in order to better themselves and keep pursuing the American Dream of making a …show more content…
By failing to address these topics which have been at the front of the Democratic Party’s concerns he fails in my mind to make a completely convincing argument on behalf of how the Democrats are “no longer the party of the people”. Another weakness that is prevalent through his argument is that Frank believes in a utopian view of liberalism. When comparing the events and changes that happened in the Obama administration to FDR’s it is hard to get on board considering all of the events that happened between those time frames in the United States (various wars, economic crises or reforms, and the rise of the professional class). When Frank keeps referring to the good ole days of old school liberalism it actually is quite insulting to the democrats of today. By making this distinction between the two types of liberalism he is isolating himself from a lot of the young “new” liberals that will be reading this book. Even though Frank does make various good points and has a lot of supporting evidence for his claims, lets face it nobody likes to be told that they aren't doing a good job or that they're doing their type of political ideology wrong. I believe if Frank had
Being a Republican, most people would think that this is an easy claim to get behind just because I am a member of the main opposing party. However, after seeing the various examples that Frank lists I am in fact quite convinced in what he has to say on the matter. Although, I will admit that over the years I have seen many examples of hypocrisy within my own party, but that’s politics. No matter what party, you cannot avoid hypocrisy because when parties evolve and parts of their beliefs change it is easy to see it as a betrayal of their core values that built the party which, is exactly what Frank believes that modern liberals have done. Claiming that this change started in the 1970s when the Democratic Party changed the way that it nominated candidates for president, and chose George McGovern. This is when it is identified when Democrats started pushing the need for higher education and started trying to appeal to the “professional class”. Because McGovern’s campaign started the careers of a lot of the new generation democrats they too believed that in order to succeed that there was a need for higher education. Both of my parents attended college in the 1980s. They both rememberer what a big push there was in their communities and even within their own families to receive a higher education in order to better themselves and keep pursuing the American Dream of making a …show more content…
By failing to address these topics which have been at the front of the Democratic Party’s concerns he fails in my mind to make a completely convincing argument on behalf of how the Democrats are “no longer the party of the people”. Another weakness that is prevalent through his argument is that Frank believes in a utopian view of liberalism. When comparing the events and changes that happened in the Obama administration to FDR’s it is hard to get on board considering all of the events that happened between those time frames in the United States (various wars, economic crises or reforms, and the rise of the professional class). When Frank keeps referring to the good ole days of old school liberalism it actually is quite insulting to the democrats of today. By making this distinction between the two types of liberalism he is isolating himself from a lot of the young “new” liberals that will be reading this book. Even though Frank does make various good points and has a lot of supporting evidence for his claims, lets face it nobody likes to be told that they aren't doing a good job or that they're doing their type of political ideology wrong. I believe if Frank had