Thomas Frank is the author of One Market Under God and What's the Matter With Kansas? He's a founding editor of The Baffler, a contributing editor to Harper's and a regular columnist for The Wall Street Journal. His new book is The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. He's also a regular guest on The Agony Column. Here's where you can find all his interviews, conversations and commentary.
We like to make fun of our high school government classes, to suggest that they're a waste of time and that we forget the history we're supposed to have learned. And there is some truth in that; but there are also parts of my American History classes that stuck with me; in particular al the stories of trust-busting back in the early 20th century. Those who would play monopoly with our economy are ever with us. Not surprisingly, Thomas Frank has his eye on the latest degeneration, and has written about it recently in the Wall Street Journal.
Frank is also keeping a close eye on those who would seemingly revise the history that many of us refused to learn. His latest look at the "reactionary right" suggests that some of our modern politicians are taking a page from an essay written long ago by one Stanislaw Lem in 'A Perfect Vacuum,' where he reviews a non-existent book titled Die Kultur als Fehler — 'Civilization as Mistake.'
Lem's review of Kultur als Fehler is eerily chock-a-block with messages that sound like semaphores from the outer reaches of the blogosphere. "It is forbidden us to change the shape of the body, weaken the lust for aggression, strengthen the intellect, balance the emotions, rearrange sex, liberate man from old age, from the labors of procreation, and this is forbidden for the reason that it has never been done, and what has never been done must surely be, by that very fact, most evil."
Frank takes his cues from Barry C. Lynn's 'Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction' a book whose title suggests more than a little about its content. If a business or a corporation is too big to fail, aren't they also, by definition, too big to exist? Frank (and I) are both fans of the sort of anti-trust legislation that is actually enforced. Imagine that — at this point, you'll have to.
Readers who wish to hear Frank and I converse on the subject of our new game of monopoly, and why civilization is indeed a mistake — beyond those wonderful reasons given by the noted socialist Polish late science fiction author, Stanislaw Lem, need do no more than follow this link to the MP3 audio file.
02-18-10: Speaking Frankly With Thomas Frank
From Tea to Shining Tea
"When I think about what I'm saying, it's so depressing..."
Thomas Frank
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That seems to be the lesson of Thomas Frank's latest columns for the Wall Street Journal. It seems that no matter how thoroughly the Aegean stables of Washington are shoveled clean, the same smell creeps back in with a new name, a new brand ... but the same folks pulling the levers, and the same goals in mind. Some folks, it seems, won't feel free while there are still laws left on the books to obey, and regulations to regulate the transfer of wealth.
It was just the names, really, that alerted Thomas Frank to the never-ending irony that is Our Government InAction. Looking at the top dogs of the new "Tea Party" movement, that ultra-conservative, ultra-free group of roving protestors, Frank noticed some very familiar names. He'd written about them in 'The Wrecking Crew' because they were the ultimate insiders, the wheeler-dealer lobbyists who made the Marianas Islands safe for Sweatshop manufacturing. Now, the same names are calling themselves the leaders of the supposedly grassroots Tea Party movement. It is the sort of irony you could drive a golf ball with — providing that Jack Abramoff had flown you and your aides to Scotland to play the game.
We also talked about the surprisingly pervasive anti-government feeling that manages to keep stepping up to the podium and turning it into the bully's pulpit. It's not surprising that people would be disgusted with government. I would guess that I am not alone in being almost unable to watch TV news these days. But the problems with government, as Frank points out in 'The Wrecking Crew,' stem from the fact that those who were put in charge in the previous administration were against the principles they were supposed to uphold; the regulators didn't regulate.
02-10-10: Speaking Frankly: Thomas Frank on Re-Populism and Re-Launching The Baffler
"I have never seen 'populist backlash in a headline before." Thomas Frank
It's always interesting when words get tossed into the political fire, their meanings burnt to a crispin, only to be reborn, and alas, re-branded. If the word "crispin" doesn't exist it should, and though the word re-branding exists, to my mind, it shouldn't. Unless it refers to being stamped with a hot poker.
Yes, we've heard a lot of populism these days, and the references pretty much seem to point to what those in the UK might call "hooliganism." But it wasn't always that way, or rather it was, but the hooligans, or Populists, as they called themselves in the 19th century, had a rather different endgame in mind.
All this new-fangled populism, left, right and center is perfect fodder for Wall Street Journal Columnist Thomas Frank. He wrote about it in "Populism is Democracy at Work," and it's the usual Frank column that makes everyone in the political realm a bit nervous. And they should be! Populism has a long and actual history that has been written down and verified. It's not exactly what the latest newspapers purport it to be. Were the original members of the Vox Populi to arise from yesteryear and assert their opinions, they'd not be so ... popular as those claiming the crown are today. Oh history, as Frank and I discuss. It is ever so inconvenient.
01-22-10: Thomas Frank
Bringing Back Glass-Steagall and the Price of Gold
I shouldn't have been surprised that the two latest Thomas Frank columns for the Wall Street Journal dealt with money matters. After all, he pointed out to me, it is the Wall Street Journal. And Frank is indeed the author of 'One Market Under God,' a book that is becoming more au courant every day. The surprise, he says in "Bring Back Glass-Steagall", is where the calls for reform of the Glass-Steagall act are coming from. And how fast the ground is changing beneath our reporting feet, as the Obama Administrastion has done an about face on Glass-Steagall.
With his column "One Cross of Gold, Coming Up", Frank takes a page from Jonathan Swift, but to my mind, he does sort of neglect to notice that of late, at least, the real world seems to be giving satirists a run for their money.
The suggestions one makes laughingly now have a way of being reported as serious news by the sorts websites that aren't all that interested in reading as we are here. Then there are reports on the reports, and reports on the reports on the reports, until the original source material is lost in a blur of hyperventilation and exaggerated paranoia. Of course, only a few of us know that there is a secret government program to steal American's gold teeth for meltdown.... Project Tooth Fairy.
01-07-10: Thomas Frank and the Populists of the GOP : "The Demented Logic of American Politics"
We apparently live in a world where the past, say, 30 years, can be swept aside with a few bracing words. Thomas Frank, author of 'What's the Matter With Kansas?' and 'The Wrecking Crew', alas, has a tendency to remember what so many would prefer to forget.
In Thomas Frank's latest column for the Wall Street Journal, "Watch Out for GOP Populism," Frank takes aim at Republican Representative Paul Ryan, who authored an article for Forbes Magazine titled, "Down with Big Business." Yes, you read that right. Of course, when you get to the heart of what he wants, it's kind of a "Freedom from Freedom" song. Frank and I start with Rep. Ryan, but, like the populists in the GOP, we really relish our freedom of speech, which you can hear by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
12-29-09: The Chat Before Christmas With Thomas Frank, December 24, 2009
If there's one thing that's clear as we lurch towards a new year, it's that everyone is quite happy to be shut of the last ten years. From the Y2K panic to twin tragedies of 9/11 and the Iraq war, from housing bubble to the ugly crash, we are all simply so done. We're eager to draw the line and hope to quickly step over it, bringing nothing from the past that we may have to scrape off our shoes. We are all simply so done.
Let's all join Thomas Frank, then as he hoists a glass to "A Low, Dishonest Decade." While Frank is best known for 'What's the Matter with Kansas?' and 'The Wrecking Crew', this time around we got back to a book he wrote in "the before time," 'One Market Under God,' an excoriation of "Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy." After all, this little tome from Y2K sought to pop the bubble a mere eight years before it was large enough to take down, uh ... the world.
Of course, it wasn't just the sort-of, almost new Depression that rained on our parades. (Unless, like me, you’d invested heavily in BarrelWear once you saw things start to circle the Big Swirly.) There was also the tiny, almost insignificant matter, or pretty much our entire government being up for sale, and unhappily, not even to the highest bidder. It was the sort of decade in which even a man like Jack Abramoff, a guy who wears a black hat in case we didn't get who the bad guys were, starts to seen a little like a tragic figure. Sure, your sympathy might last all of ten seconds, and it is clearly tens second more than deserved, but at least had the decency to get caught and fess up. Everyone on the other side of his deals, with too few exceptions, is still in the business of selling the United States government to business; now they're in business and not in the government, and they're still toxic waste. We've managed to throw away the keys before they got locked up. I suppose it's just a matter of getting things in the right order. Listeners who want to hear to New World Order subjected to some Old World Wit need but follow this link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
12-15-09: Thomas Franks on Republican Purity Tests : Return or Re-Run of the Montagnards
Leave it to Thomas Frank to bring back the French Revolution, or at least the cool beheading action aspect. The columnist for the Wall Street Journal recently wrote about the proposed Republican Purity tests, in "Conservatives Want Republican Purge Trials" and I rang him up to draw out the violent details.
The problem with purity tests is that eventually, we're all going to fail them. The question is just who is going to be on the giving side and who is going to be on the taking side. Thomas Frank, author of 'The Wrecking Crew' (/agony/reviews/2008/frank-the_wrecking_crew.htm), decided to take those lovely current-day Republican litmus strips and run them past some of the would-be graven-in-stone heroes of the Republican party, in particular, one ex-actor and astrology fan who had his hand on the tiller of this (once) great nation. Frank and I have a pretty good idea that when they break out the guillotine "for reals," that we're not long for this world anyway. Why not start living dangerously now? You can up your danger content by following this link the MP3 audio file of our conversation, no test required!
12-02-09: Tears of a Clown : Thomas Frank Unbuilds Glen Beck
Language gets misused more often than it gets used — if the goal of language is to communicate the truth clearly and effectively. As readers and as a listening audience, we have to pay attention to the use and misuse of language out there in the wider culture, because a world where that book can become some insane bestseller is created by the wider use of language in that culture. If we all preface every sentence with, "Cluck, cluck," our bestsellers are likely to read like a bull session overheard in a chicken coop. Thomas Frank, author of 'what’s the Matter with Kansas?' and 'The Wrecking Crew' knows a thing or two about how language is tormented in the wider culture. And he's been studying the Fox networks who assert that they should be guarding those chickens.
In particular, Frank took on the unenviable task of looking into the life and work of Glen Beck, now the loudest mouth in the henhouse, and the result is the funny and frightening "Glen Beck's Holy War: How an Unlikely Talk Show Host Became the Savior of the Right," running in his this month's Playboy Magazine.
Readers know I enjoy horror fiction; the horrors of this actual world, not so much, perhaps. But Frank's article is important in its vision of language tortured beyond the imaginations of the Eli Roths of this world. Also, it's really fun to read and sort of amazing. Beck is an almost Fortean character who can apparently cry on demand. And he;s a lot of fun to unbuild, to take apart like a stack of Jenga pieces. Remove one piece and the whole illogical mess comes tumbling down. So instead of listening to frothing rants of politics mutated by nuclear radiation into horrific entertainment, why not sit back and enjoy the smooth styling of my conversation with Thomas Frank by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
10-27-09: Thomas Frank's Labor and Paranoia
"This is something that drives a certain segment of our society absolutely crazy..." — Thomas Frank
...and in that quote we've not even begun to talk about paranoia! That's right, Thomas Frank is back, with a look at the big ideas in small events, the little bread crumbs that are found in the back pages of the newspaper that actually point out the huge changes coursing through our cultural and political establishments. This week, we looked at one of those tweedly, insider bits of news that opens up a new vista of vapidity and celebrated the upcoming 45th anniversary of a little bit of prescience on the part of Richard Hofstadter from the November 1964 edition of Harper's Magazine.
I caught up with Thomas Frank as the tears started to roll down the face of a certain talk-show host. Actually, that's not hard! There's a whole lot of crying and self-pity going on in the political world. And fascinatingly, it starts from the smallest of seeds, from the Mike Enzi hold on Obama nominee Labor Department solicitor nominee Patricia Smith, guilty of having been an effective advocate for labor rights, in that she helped to start the Wage Watch program, chronicled in Frank's column for the Wall Street Journal,"The GOP vs. Labor Law". There's an interesting strain of politician afoot who seems to feel the needs to be a politician while denying the import of government; sort of like if your local police thought that laws were counterproductive in terms of encouraging and enforcing lawful behavior. It's funny, in a very depressing fashion.
Frank and I also talk about The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard Hofstadter, an essay writer some 45 years ago to address the then-minor-league phenomenon of the John Birch Society. It's a great essay, and it was especially fun, after reading Frank's essay for the Wall Street Journal, "From John Birchers to Birthers", to talk with him about the new ranks of the American Paranoids. These are people who have pioneered cry-on-demand television. Alas, their only reason for crying is their mind-boggling wealth. I have too much fun talking to Thomas Frank, and I trust you'll enjoy hearing his take on events as you follow this link to the MP3 audio file.
Kansas artist M. T. Liggett protests FEMA's rebuilding of
Greensburg, KS, from the movie What's the Matter with
Kansas? by by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston
10-09-09: Thomas Frank Unleashes The Predator State : Consuming the Consumer
Everybody reads differently, which is what makes reading such a wonderful way to entertain one's self — while expanding your outlook on the world. For example, check out Thomas Frank's Wall Street Journal piece on how Conservatives read liberal writer Kenneth Galbraith, Health Care and the 'Predator State'.
When you're done, grab a brew, pull up a chair and give a listen to my chat with Thomas Frank, where we cover the week's politics with our own reading of events — and talk about the movie based on his book, 'What's the Matter With Kansas?' Yes, events can be read as well, in fact, the core concept of reading, the skills of the reader, are called into play a lot more often than anyone might suspect. We read one another — we read the road in front of us or suffer the consequences. And we have to read the news, even if we watch it on television. Paper has not refused ink — and our ears do not refuse the words that are spoken in our general vicinity. We have to sift through them and give them meaning. Here's a link to my conversation with Thomas Frank.
I thought it might be fun to get Frank on the phone and talk to him about the week's events, which is something that we really can't prepare for, because things are changing so fast, and the outrageous events pile up so quickly that it's hard to keep track of the lies, the truths, the lies about the truths and the truths about the lies. When I scheduled the interview, I must admit, I told him it was conditional on the phones still working. Anyone who remembers the recent outage in northern California when the lines were deliberately cut will know that's no given. (And note that there was never really a satisfactory explantion given for what could well have been an act of terrorism.) You can hear my conversation with Thomas Frank, covering recent events (phone lines permitting) by following the link to the MP3 audio file.
08-18-08: A 2008 Interview With Thomas Frank
For a guy with bad news in his book and on his mind, Thomas Frank sure has sunny disposition. He arrived at KQED with lunch in hand and chomped cheerily in the atrium while chatting with my wife and Naomi Eppel. Heck, we might have all been out on a picnic, everybody was so happy. This in spite of the torrent of bad news that unfolded soon afterwards when he and I sat down to talk about 'The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule'. Frank is witty, quick and smart, and often mordantly funny even as he is spinning the tale of how we've managed to put people in charge of government who actually hate government. Just this morning, I read about the resignation of Paul Hoffman, the former director of the "Chamber of Commerce" (read: "group of greedy businessmen") of Cody, Wyoming, from the Department of the Interior. He's quoted as saying the department "gets into your blood but doesn't necessarily turn it green." At this point there are so many foxes in henhouses that it seems quite likely they'll have to begin feasting on one another since the poultry's got to be getting pretty scarce.
The preceding paragraph was brought to you by a 52-minute conversation with Thomas Frank, which you can hear for yourself via this link. Frank and I delve into details that didn't make it into his book, since he admits having done "way, way, too much research on South Africa" and the shady goings-on with the IFF, that is, the International Freedom Foundation. "They're for freedom, Rick – internationally, of course." Frank's the kind of writer and speaker who could tell you that ICBM's were streaking over the Arctic Circle and leave you smiling as you consider the potential effects of their passage on the Aurora Borealis. But he also has all the hard facts that enable you, the reader (and listener) to face the hard decisions that are coming our way. And make no mistake, those decisions are headed towards us with the inevitability of an ICBM, and alas, no potential for pretty side effects on the Aurora Borealis. Readers and listeners had best enjoy hearing Frank tell us what we've done to ourselves. Smart language is our only way out.
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03-08-10: Commentary : Joe Hill Grows 'Horns' : Devil and Detail
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Joe Hill : "Eventually, the wicked and the unworthy will get their just desserts on the business end of the Devil's pitchfork."
03-05-10: Commentary : Henry Porter Calls 'The Bell Ringers' : It Takes The Village
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03-04-10: Commentary : Jo NesbØ Earns 'The Devil's Star' : Rewind
03-01-10: Commentary : Adam Haslett Invests With 'Union Atlantic' : Abstract Power Abstracts Absolutely
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With Adam Haslett : "With her, and with each character, how does the rhythm create a kind of musical argument?"
02-26-10: Commentary : Dan Simmons Heads for the 'Black Hills' : Unstuck in Life
02-23-10: Commentary : Adam Haslett Knows 'You Are No Stranger Here' : Stories from Strangers' Shoes
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Jedediah Berry Interviewed at SF in SF, February 13, 2010 : "...being at Small Beer has actually introduced whole worlds to me ..."
02-22-10: Commentary : Graeme Gibson's 'The Bedside Book of Birds' and 'The Bedside Book of Beasts' : A Feast for Your Mind, Your Eyes and Your Mind's Eye
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with Graeme Gibson : "Our common humanity, our common culture, will help make the connections."
02-19-10: Commentary : Ralph Waldo Ellison 'Three Days Before the Shooting ...' : One Book, Many Stories
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02-18-10: Commentary : George Mann Scares Up 'The Ghosts of Manhattan' : Hard Core Pulp Action
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly With Thomas Frank : From Tea to Shining Tea : "When I think about what I'm saying, it's so depressing..."
02-17-10: Commentary : Thomas More, Clarence Miller and 'Utopia' : Politics, Satire, Fantasy
02-15-10: Commentary : 'Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded' by John Scalzi : A Decade of Whatever
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02-12-10: Commentary : Stephanie Merritt Becomes S. J. Parris : 'Heresy'
02-11-10: Commentary : Max Watman 'Chasing the White Dog' : Home-Made Hooch and Rebellion
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02-10-10: Commentary : Anne Lamott Spots 'Imperfect Birds' : The Ties That Unbind
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly: Thomas Frank on Re-Populism and Re-Launching The Baffler : "I have never seen 'populist backlash in a headline before."
02-09-10: Commentary : Douglas Clegg Returns to 'Neverland' : Is 1980's Horror Returning from the Grave?
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