You can use your St. Louis County Library card to borrow titles from these partner libraries:
The Wrecking Crew
How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation
by Thomas Frank
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt federal government those politicians have given us.
Casting his eyes from the Bush administration's final months of plunder to the earliest days of the Republican revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. While deregulating some industries and defunding others, they always turn public policy into a private-sector bidding war.
It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Stamped with Thomas Frank's audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet—and his most important.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
May 1, 2024 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781429929813
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781429929813
- File size: 1567 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Starred review from May 26, 2008
Republican misrule and mistaken policy is the intended fulfillment of conservative antigovernment ideology, argues this scintillating j'accuse
. Frank (What's the Matter With Kansas?
) surveys what he regards as the hallmarks of conservative control of Washington: a government hobbled by budget deficits, disgraced by scandals, downsized, outsourced, hollowed out and sold off to corporate interests and thus made incapable of meeting its basic responsibilities. The result of this “political vandalism,” he contends, is a perverse propaganda triumph for conservatives, who point with gleeful cynicism to the shambles they make of government as proof that government can't do anything right. Frank presents a scathing recap of Republican mismanagement and corruption, from the Hurricane Katrina debacle to the depredations of Jack Abramoff, and combines it with a shrewd dissection of the theories of conservative ideologues who call for and celebrate the sabotaging of the state. Writing with a barbed wit and finely controlled anger, he skewers such juicy targets as libertarian strategist Grover Norquist and Michelle Malkin, “a pundit with the appearance of a Bratz doll but the soul of Chucky.” One of the sharpest political commentators around, Frank is required reading for every concerned citizen. -
September 29, 2008
Frank paints a complex and conspiracy-ridden picture that illuminates the sinister and controversial practices of the Republican party in the 20th and 21st centuries. While Frank's assessments and interpretations of key events, players and party doctrines is accurate and justifiable, his overwhelming blame of the Republican Party as the source of everything that's wrong with this county and as the emblem of self-destructing government denies the Democrats and the citizenry their roles in a decaying democracy. Wyman's matter-of-fact delivery hints at the obviousness of Frank's words, but provides enough enthusiasm to make listeners believe he, too, is invested in Frank's message. His emphasis and vigor keep the text enjoyable, long after the rant of Republican despotism has become excessive. A Metropolitan Books hardcover (Reviews, May 26).
-