Essayist Thomas Frank has long punctured the pieties of the self-congratulatory ‘60s generation and the feckless hipsters that followed in their wake. In Listen, Liberal, he aims his sharp sense of social and cultural indignation at the Democratic Party, whose leaders are no longer wedded to the working class but to the “10 Percent.”
These are the so-called “knowledge workers” from Silicon Valley and the Ivy League whose market society ideology is only slightly less cruel (or perhaps it’s only phrased more politely) than the dogma of their Republican opponents. Frank calls Hilary Clinton part of the problem as a Wall Street confidant and treacherous politician who, as secretary of state, helped negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, only to denounce the deal as a presidential candidate.
