Wreck and Affect

Thomas Frank is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.


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Published: Sep 10, 2008

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When Thomas Frank graduated from the University of Chicago in 1994 with a Ph.D. in history, he couldn't find a tenure-track teaching job. It was academia's loss: Frank has since become one of America's leading pundits.

As editor and co-founder of The Baffler, Frank carved out a distinct voice in the world of cultural studies. As the author of the 2004 barnstormer What's the Matter with Kansas? Frank delved deep into American history to understand the strength of the Republican party in the American Midwest. And as a contributor to The New York Times, The Nation and now as the sole liberal voice on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Frank opines regularly on contemporary politics. City Paper caught up with him by phone in advance of his upcoming appearance at the Free Library, where he'll read from his latest book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule (Metropolitan Books, $25).

City Paper: You've written a book about the conservative movement just as it seems to be unraveling. Why now?

Thomas Frank: First of all, don't count them out yet. These guys will be back. But the answer to your question is, because now we have to hold these people accountable. And since the right is not being held accountable, people are just going to lapse into a kind of general cynicism about government itself. They don't blame one party or the other for screwing everything up in Washington. They blame government. It's a very natural attitude to take, unless someone gets up and leads the discussion in a different direction. And the man who needs to do that is Obama. But he ain't doing it! He's not talking about why things are so screwed up in Washington. He talks about bipartisanship.

CP: Do you think Obama will be able to make good on the stuff he's promised? Like raising taxes on the wealthy?

TF: Sure, he'll be able to do those things, especially with a Democratic Congress. The problem is dismantling the machinery of conservative Washington. The contractors, the lobbying industry — the powers that be in that city.

CP: The last time you went across the country to promote a book was when What's the Matter With Kansas? came out in 2004. How are things different this time?

TF: When I wrote What's the Matter With Kansas? it was about 50/50: people that agreed with me and people that really, really disagreed in a really visceral kind of way, And now I can't get anybody to defend the Bush administration. The only defense people can come up with is to say he's not a real conservative, which four years ago they would never have said.

CP: Do you have a sense of what's going on inside the conservative movement right now?

TF: That I can't tell you. ... I would guess that they're in a state of panic. Judging from the number of incumbent congressmen and senators fleeing Congress, my theory is that this is their market-based politics working in reverse. Instead of it booming, now they're in panic mode, like panic sellers in a real estate market. Because the whole premise was you're in Congress for a while and then you go off to K Street and you really cash in. That assumes that your friends are still in power back in Congress. Well, if they're not, your value goes down a lot. The price you can command in the market goes down a lot. And so they're trying to realize some of that price before it evaporates.

CP: So is it lonely on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal? Why did they hire you?

TF: I don't have the faintest idea. I like to think it's because I'm a good writer. Look, before I came on they were pretty much univocal. And there was a time when all newspapers were like that. They used to be party organs, back in the day. We're talking about 100 years ago. I think it's more of a modern invention, trying to have balance. But when they hired me they were very polite, very nice. And they've been very professional. They do a good job editing the columns. Like in every other journalism job I've ever done.

CP: And what's going on with The Baffler?

TF: We're working on it! It's not gone!

CP: Do you think anyone out there now is doing the same sort of critique The Baffler was doing in the 1990s?

TF: There might be people online doing similar things, but I haven't seen it. The Baffler is a unique thing. We're gonna get it back on track. I don't think anybody is, or is capable of, doing the same critique. That was unique to us. Other people do really great stuff. Harper's does great stuff. Have you seen Lewis Lapham's Quarterly and n+1? They're really good. There are a lot of magazines that are similar out there, but nobody has The Baffler critique.

CP: And that is?

TF: It was skepticism toward pseudo-radicalism, and the commodification of dissent.

So now you know! Now you know the secret formula!

CP: Yes! We can steal it! So you must have amassed a pretty interesting collection of right-wing agitprop while researching The Wrecking Crew.

TF: I have [Republican lobbyist] Jack Abramoff's first poster. It shows Soviet soldiers in Red Square. It's all black and in white lettering it says something like "Help the Soviet Union: Support the Nuclear Freeze." Basically accusing supporters of the nuclear freeze of being Soviet dupes. I also have a lapel pin that says "Defund the Left."

CP: Speaking of Abramoff, you seemed to have exposed him as a dupe for the De Klerk government in South Africa during his student days.

TF: When the Abramoff scandal broke in 2005, I did the mandatory LexisNexis search on the guy's name and I found out about the International Freedom Foundation. I just couldn't believe it, that the same guy who was in the headlines every day with these outrageous scams was the head of this think tank that had been funded by the apartheid regime in South Africa. It just seemed too crazy. I decided to look into that and it was the first bit of research that I did.

CP: Did you go to South Africa?

TF: No — I called a lot of people there, though. At some point whoever wants to do the proper study of Jack Abramoff is gonna have to go there. But then again, why would someone want to write the ultimate Jack Abramoff biography?

CP: You spoke with a lot of pretty important figures from the world of radical conservatism for this book. Was it ever awkward? Just like, socially?

TF: Most of the people I contacted refused to do interviews. Which is what you expect with someone like me. But [anti-tax activist] Grover Norquist is unusually open. I met him at a cocktail party. He's a very nice man when you meet him in person. His image wouldn't lead you to believe that, but he's actually a very friendly guy. And [conservative direct-mail pioneer] Richard Viguerie is another one I talked to and is also a charming person. Very grandfatherly. He's got this booming bass voice. Had read What's the Matter with Kansas? and has all sorts of his own theories about populism. We talked about it for quite a while. Very interesting man. Another really intelligent guy. But most of the people I contacted didn't want to talk to me.

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CP: So if there's political change in the wind, what does it mean for old industrial strongholds like Pennsylvania?

TF: The question is, can you bring back manufacturing in America? And I don't even know if the Democrats are interested in that. Some of them are. The ones from Michigan, the ones from Ohio, certainly the ones from Pennsylvania. But by and large if you read the literature of the wing of the Democratic party that's always in charge — these people have an idea that you don't really need an economy based on manufacturing. What you need is what they call the "creative class." And so their idea is that everybody is a graphic designer or a newspaper columnist or something. And blue-collar work should all be done for pennies by somebody else. And that's their plan for what America should look like. And in my opinion that's risible.

CP: Well, in theory, at least, there's always talk of retraining people.

TF: Oh, come on. You know all that stuff is malarkey. There's been all kinds of studies on this. When you close down an auto plant or a steel plant, very few of them ever get back to their standard of living. And that's the downward trajectory of the blue-collar class. It's a long-term trend that's been going on since the early 1970s. And to reverse it is going to take enormous political effort.

(joel.tannenbaum@citypaper.net)

Frank will read from and sign The Wrecking Crew, Tue., Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m., $14, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-686-5322, freelibrary.org.