make them into the objects that we appreciate today. >> host: how long did the whole process take? >> guest: it could take years. oftentimes especially the late middle ages there were craftspeople working together in a workshop setting. sometimes one eliminator can work on the book and "the apprentice" could do the others in the master would do the support it depends on the size of the book over 100 animal skins could be used so the process was very intensive and could take a long time.

>> good evening. i am co-owner of politics and prose along with my wife and on behalf of the entire store staff would like to welcome you this evening. this is the first author talk of the new year for us and marks the presumption of our regular off 30 vans that were suspended for a few weeks during the holiday season. as you can see from the overcrowding we do not have a chance to move the store over the holidays but we are considering options. but we're really delighted to have such a large

audience here tonight for the first event of january. for the holiday season, very encouraging for us particularly as new owners. we had sales well in excess of the previous december and then has been true of a number of independent bookstores across the country. the number challenges ahead with online sales and evokes but we are very encouraged and very grateful for your continued loyalty and patronage. where also quite delighted to present thomas frank and his new book "pity the billionaire" the hard-times swindle and the unlikely comeback of the right". no question about it.

right is back as unlikely may have seen the november 2008 when obama was elected and democrats obtained control of both houses of congress. he looks at the resurgence of the right to in the reasons for it and what it portends for the future. a big political year is just getting started. we would not be politics and prose of we were not planning on featuring political books in the months ahead to hold the number of discussions about this election season. we're very fortunate to have tom to kick things off. as a journalist and commentator he has been writing about politics and culture in the united states for some time. ph.d. in history, university of chicago. the reputation is a articulate provocative voice of the left and a former opinion columnist for "the wall street journal" in by

the way i was just informed we will soon be carrying the ba'ath lawyer magazine. [laughter] and since late 2010 he has been riding a column for "harper's" magazine and lives in the washington area and has appeared at politics and prose at least for the last two of his books. what's the matter with kansas? and the wrecking crew. this is his fifth book and has edited a couple of anthologies. in this book he argues the right has managed to resurrect itself by taking a vantage of public anger of the disastrous condition of the economy and have offered the appealing narrative

about what went wrong not placing the blame on wall street bond government. and rather than a knowledge of the notions of laissez-faire economics free play are badly undercut from the realities of mismanagement, they have in his view, up the ante to become more ideological and more insistent about the free-market ideals. this idea at a time of economic collapse brought on by -- financial irresponsibility people should embrace the notion of free markets more blindly to strike tom as a rages. imagine if the public had demanded dozens of new nuclear power plants days after three mile island. [laughter] or if we reacted to watergate by representative making richard nixon national hero. it sounds crazy.

a number of non economic issues continue to contribute to such as abortion and gay marriage is in effect of the campaign to galvanize the rate. the economy is to be a subject of contention in his book makes important points to keep in mind and shows how the republicans so far have been more successful than democrats to define the terms of the debate and the essential argument of the right to provide a compelling vehicle the popular anger is a significant consideration. i am sure he has other interesting points to make and i will turn the microphone over to him the first please silence your cellphones. he will speak for about 15 or 20 minutes then take questions.

please step up to the microphone that we have a and c-span is here in we like to record everything for the website. please join me to welcome, frank -- thomas frank. [applause] and. >> first, that is very kind of brad but also remember independent bookstores these places are absolutely essentials to the literary life of this nation. it is a great thing that he keeps this place going and let's hope it goes for a long long time. once turn the cellphones off.

when i came to talk about tonight was the confused era that we live in. the time when americans are rising up against imaginary threats to economic theories that they understand only in terms that we talk about a country where fears of a radical takeover became academic even though they ceased to play any role in national life where nightmares conjured up by tv entertainers are more compelling than those of the news pages. but if you look at it from a different perspective, it is miraculously. a great awakening. revival crusade the old-time

religion of the free market and that era of grass-roots rebellion and the incredible recovery of the conservative political movement from defeat. and confess there is something miraculously and astonishing consider the facts that to this is the fourth successful conservative uprising in my lifetime always bluster standing slightly right of the predecessor and each hopes to compose another chapter in the epic that i call the great backlash that others call the age of reagan or the age of greed or the conservative ascendancy with the washington consensus. it has now been 32 years of the supply-side revolution

conquered the city the free market faith became the nation's ruling class shared by large numbers of democrats and since then we have lived through decades of deregulation and the unionization and privatization and free trade agreements. of the free-market a deal has been projected to every corner of the nation's life for the universities, they tried to put themselves on market based footing, electric utilities and museums and the post office, the cia, u.s. army and now after all this, we have the people's uprising demanding we embrace the free market ideology and only then did three lead into the greatest economic catastrophe of memory. it is amazing.

also preposterous would be even more right. [laughter] back in 20 '08 the country's financial system suffered the breakdown and areas every serious observer agrees to roll back experimentation. of the bank stumbled and plunged the world into the worst recession since the 30's but as i stand here tonight the main political response to these events is a campaign to roll back regulation, stripped government employees of the right to organize and clampdown on federal spending. let us give the rebels there do that the conservative come back is something unique in the history of

social movements of the mass conversion to the free market theory as a response to hard times. before the presence on by had never heard of a recession dictum developing a whole school taste or a spontaneous hostility to the works of franklin roosevelt park before the skirt recession, people who were cheated by bankers almost never took dedication to demand that they be free from the red tape under the scrutiny of the law. the man in the bread line did not customarily cry for the man who was lounging on his yacht. [laughter] the achievement is remarkable if you remember the but after the disasters of the presidency had culminated in the

catastrophe on wall street, of the citizens are beautiful boat way consensus. but we all agree for fear of the pundit have seen this before. the plate was shifting and the conservative decades-long reign was satin end, liberal activism was seth the hand for ago it was supposed to be unmistakable as the gigantic crowd that gathered to hear obama's because he was on the campaign trail. you could no more look at this plot line then write checks on the m&t bank account. the thinking mccaw's and the crisis had clearly discredited the idea is this

scandal and incompetence rack to a claims and the me -- straightened frederick was repugnant and there was the obvious historical we were just there replay of the financial disaster 1929. but now the automatic left turn of 32 was that an end after being elected by obama. or the planned it approved script would like this. of the g.o.p. had to moderate its self or face a long period of irrelevance. remember that? with the polite speaking world expected was repentance and they assumed there would be humbled by the disasters of george w.

bush that they would confess their heirs the world's expect did contrition but what we got was the at this stage opposite and instead of complying with the new speed limit the strategist at the gas and instead of seeking accommodation it went on a quest for ideological purity and instead of elevating the remaining they declared they never got their turn in the first place. of the true believers had never been in complete control. the conservative ascendency never existed. of a journalist and historical work on the subject was so much liberal propaganda and therefore

most importantly the disastrous events of recent years cast in node discredit on the ideas themselves. it was not to reconsider but double them to go more energetically for the laissez-faire utopia. this is the moment where i drinkwater. [laughter] written into the script the social patterns of hard times are to be simple. impersonal and mechanical and the forces before you know, what people are at in the streets screaming for blood. the idylls of the past our targets of derision. we demand the government do something and rescue the victims. we look for insurance

against further catastrophe and supervision to make sure it never happens again. that is how it went to 1937 a catastrophe comes and certain deeds will follow almost automatically. unemployment insurance will be extended again. massive investment with works and commissions will be named and agencies our set up to keep people from losing their house is to foreclosure. as the economy falls apart we will read discover it comes from a personal deprivation in those of the bottom will take action on their own behalf and union organizing may be a wave of strikes sweeping the country in response to the complete

breakdown of the capital is some promising and those hurt will protest of course, voicing discontent in public places like the farmers and i 11932. who claimed to be upholding the spirit of the boston tea party as they dumped out the contents of the tracks that tried to cross the picket line. 2008 sure enough to look like the pattern was repeating itself. it began with a financial insanity similar to the 20s and it is not a coincidence the modern day miss behavior began but they were allowed to go but in the awful days of 1932 when when they show

off them in to lead ditch while the rest of us had a tramp their return to juxtapose americans against the in carrying predatory world. but if you would have been to hear the homage to the spirit of the boston tea party the demands that follow will be exactly the opposite of those striking iowa farmers back from 1932 and what makes the rebels blood boil is not the plight of the indebted property owner but the possibility that such losers might escape their predicament. it might step been to do the very things that those iowa farmers wanted them to do 80 years ago. 17 years following seven fat years.

what burns the modern populist that is if anybody has the air against you think human affairs could be arranged any other way that somehow they could allow the neighbor to invade of the common disaster and mortgage remediation bill might let him off the hard times that he so clearly deserves. they're all liquidation nest and what they want the world to understand to see the words i saw a printed on a sign, your mortgage is not my problem. now how desk this conservatism have that reversal? >> knowing the lessons of the great depression and during times of economic collapse they figured out that nobody loves a defender

of orthodoxy or the self-appointed spokesperson. when the collapse. >> of social uprising with the significant. those with money in those boycotts for the there was big talks of stock during keying with the producer class but what is more common than newest right course does not have no leaders. it is from a democratic so rank-and-file in so punk rock it was actively against leaders. downright assessed with betrayal to be sold out by traditional politicians

think of glenn beck who was the emblematic figure in all this stuff we're talking about in the confucian. who used to ritually complain to be a man beyond partisanship and is deliberately imitated amount k march on washington and at one point you remember with his career he suggested we would vote for hillary clinton is she won the democratic nomination. if you watched closely i spent a lot of time doing that. [laughter] so you don't have too. [laughter] if you read it closely that he constantly eight coffers left-leaning imagery the

coming straight from the pages of known chomskyan think of racism against obama witches' his clumsy attempt to use a weapon that conservatives feel is always directed against themselves. also glories to imagine themselves as victims. there is the total heeds your fifth persecution that covers over sarah palin. that is her brand image for grotius a person but sometimes the fear could get baroque and in the 2010 novel for crow it is kind of see exciting book. but conservatives every three men big brother can

throw on the flimsiest of charges and have savaged the beings in the book's hero is rewarded after he signs up for this fictional version of the tea party movement and patriotic meetings are constantly infiltrated by police, as spies, aged prosecutors. the descendants they used to have in cities like chicago to suppress the left-wing radicals back of the day but with the idea is that they are now cracking down on the right. and in this fictional by the way. that never happened. [laughter] some of those happen all the time and in 2009 the populist right was swept by the panic the new democratic administration was preparing concentration camps for conservatives and it turned

out not to be true. [laughter] i'm sure that is a big surprise but i did research and neither fred role has criminalize the free market faith but they have used force to imprison and labor organizers to disrupt the anti-war movements. but today it suits their right to as the real victim of state persecution that enhances the aura of the movement to take on the merciless establishment. i want to stop there. and to change subjects. it is fun to poke holes of what conservatives say. i have a whole book and these are dark times but there is some humor.

fable of the fact when they feel like it and they swipes symbols from the other side constantly and illustrate arguments with fairy tales. and on their is a preposterous and contemptible but you know, it is better than nothing. but the memory is poison for air freight both kohlberg movement. and ear revert six culprits come of those that wrecked the economy were not punished for what they did. they were rewarded. and by this at all mean they got away with a slap on the wrist but laden down with billions and our blessings.

today they are rich in a way that you and i could never comprehend and all this happened courtesy of our government and conducting themselves as anything happens at all. but the money will be recouped and the experts understand. you could not have contrived a scenario better calculated to destroy a face an american institution. what is the point* of hard work and scrapping for a few dollars more with the dishonest men is so profitable. why play by the rules but obviously they don't apply to everybody? with croaks and bullies stay calm society's greatest rewards. the bailouts create a perfect situation or

environment for populism or old fashioned howlers and the jeremiah raging against the corrupt and powerful. but they tossed inconvenient leaders over board. but the actual political descendants of jackson and chairman and roosevelts failed to rise to the occasion and do not have much to say. they don't seem to get it that circumstances call for something different. they could not embrace the requirements of the moment even though responding to hard times was there very

reason for being. take the bella out. there are 100 different ways that to situation to be dealt with. each he was a treasury secretary of bush. but a a a did not lay plans to an official at -- unless the power and stood at pains now they he embraced each time political averse to the came, and there are a few exceptions are pretty much each time, the obama team would compromise in the direction of wall street as though that needed to be mollified. but.

all the hard guys that he brought in from chicago but catering to wall street, that is victories but coming around to the way of the market was high-minded in the '90s and the this statesmen like acknowledgement of the affair the ability but the advent of hard times make that reasoning as obsolete as the floppy best all the democrats did not know it to the great recession read polarized. they're common interest was

the moment for a second fdr. but to go back to the tragically incompetent staff of world war i. you come to politics ambrose samisen with one analogy that is what you have yourself in the four but an end lourdes they ordered eight sold only to see the members annihilated but still they cashed at it. with the rules of combat not to do anything remotely clever and always completely surprised when the other side introduced to the 20th century warfare.

sometimes i wonder although the five they get the chance to finally do without the asian. maybe finally here in but maybe as a nation clamps further down into the pit called utopia, the thinking of the market money it -- my book continue to evolve and will have discovered a those uncontroversial knoll arms of the state must be alleviated immediately. water the national highways and parks? wasteful subsidies for those leeches who should pay their own way. what is disaster relief but

a power grab from losers two could not get themselves out of the path of hurricane. [laughter] you know, social security will go as the social injustice of protecting the week dawns on us. why should society pay for the retirement of someone who has now been responsible to hoarded krugerrands like they were supposed to do? [laughter] every problem of inequality and global warming financial baubles will not matter. on america will go to chase the only ideology that the country has left. down to the pit, that seeing arcadia of all against all. you very much. [applause] >> something is going on back there everything okay?

we will do questions i think they said up a microphone. i brought up 102 sign books. [laughter] after rear done i will sign whatever you want. who was first? i have been standing here i am interested in your response. a looks as though the other side knows the good offense is better than a good defense and the languishing is better. how could you not, how could do not be pro-life? what is the opposite of the free-market?

>> i see we were getting at. >> but the language of the free market brings up the wonderful images that how could any person be against that? the democrats have done a wonderful job to stay in their dog house and not do anything the casscells in one last thing one application calls show of hands for people voted seems democrats won the question is should you compromise or give it your all, it looks like 70 percent of democrats want to compromise in 80 percent of republicans want to go for it. >> it is amazing that is a scenario built for defeat. >> they call in game theory.

if you put those groups together who will win? those who believe been compromised as the innermost principal or the people who were like we will win? tom delay wrote about this and his memoir. i'm sure you carry that. [laughter] but we would move further to the right because we knew that clinton was triangulating. then that means he has to go that much further. that is his stated strategy everybody knows it is incredibly easy to play him. [laughter] enough of that. maybe the game going hard but i don't think so. i think the colt of centralism is just as hallucinatory.

[applause] i didn't think you would like that. [laughter] but it comes from political science but they are very similar but to as far as i am concerned they are both completely discredited. >> you spoke eloquently but give us a review of the birth of the fears the were alluding to. >> fear was natural in my opinion. i was scared. the interesting for a is how to read direct that for your own purpose is that went to a lot of tea party rally is. by the way the book is called "pity the billionaire".

[laughter] i went to a lot of some of rallies and they talk about ramping get up making it sound more dramatic but they would move the focus. so was set of talking about the destruction of our economy but our liberties. instead of pouring about the power of wall street but obama's the dictator. a classic example is to talk about debt. and it was out of control but we have a debt crisis that the government runs to bigger the deficit. they are. i should not get all huffy. it is my opinion. [laughter] good to what you see is the redirection from the obvious targets to the fantasy

culprit. there is a whole industry that does this. fox news you should try that on some time. the name i should give it is glenn beck and he deals with the year. turn him on any day and listen it is the end of the world coming down straight at you it is also buy a new path an interesting fact, i did you know, the he idolizes orson welles? in his first book he talks about is how he really likes him and there is a photo of him doing a radio drama. i said it looks familiar. i look it up and it is the same pose has more of the

world's and i went on, but i suddenly got it. >> i happen to hear you're in period with the problem of experts and democrats realize and could you elaborate? also answer the question? [laughter] >> that is a good question. and it seems to me this is both of modern democratic party strength as well as the achilles heel and there is no individual and he

looks to academic expertise but and the various statements and deeds and most of them i agree with. most of them go far enough and did not do things exactly the same way but it was clearly yes universal health insurance is a good idea but the problem is they would explain these as things we needed because the expert said that we needed them. we know we need them because of the experience of keynesian economics and the work of decades of the economist. find. that is true. but that leaves unstated when roosevelt a have

develops the liberal elite. of phrase that we all should know. and what they mean by that is the ruling class in this country is highly educated peoplehood who went to graduate school.

it is flatly incorrect the invisible hand has its grip of but it is not harvard graduates from wichita kansas, it is people following the dictates of the market. but that is the critique and they hammer home with incredibly powerful rhetoric and the democrats take no notice. that is us. but again and again they walk into the buzz saw. here we come. [laughter] if they are so goddamn smart why haven't they looked? not just me talking about the strategy but a whole body of literature talking

about conservative populism. it is a well-known phenomenon. but the democratic leadership in this city never get separate the men never figure out how would democrats counter the right wing populism? maybe there's a way to be populist in their own right? could there be such a thing? i am sorry i talk about this way too much. i talk about this constantly and i will shut up now. >> of those conservatives our disadvantaged against their own interest. >> hour they successful to get away with it? they're misled, lied too. >> than they are getting screwed. >> as they are finding and wisconsin. but first, i went to the tea party gatherings and i read a lot of the literature.

the one thing that i understood almost immediately after hanging around with these people that they are not to blue-collar people by and large. they're small business people. they also tend to be fairly well-off. i went to a rally in denver and there i met a man who was wearing an ascot. [laughter] at the protest rally. i have never seen that before. [laughter] that was the first time i ever saw that. they have conventions. there is one every year. and they typically have a trade show attached where they sell one another thing is. say what you want about occupy wall street didn't have a trade show everybody could buy the trinkets.

by the way i am the enthusiastic consumer of tea party stuff i have a houseful of the stuff. one of my favorite is the solid silver coin commemorating of the march on washington. today issue those 1932 solid silver coins? [laughter] it tends to be movement of more affluent people and small business people at least that is what i have found. but the rallies are not huge. there is a big one here but by and large it just usually a couple hundred or sometime smaller than that. but they were the vanguard of a moment. we how the language, the megaphone, the money and the media with their own tv channel amplifying everything they say. a lot of blue-collar people we know from the polls and

the election heard with these days are selling and bought it. look in the state of wisconsin how did they get that way? wisconsin was known for the left lane tradition if not radical and up until just a few years ago, there were a lot of very liberal members of the congressional delegation and they just got wiped out in 2010. not just by moderates people think "atlas shrugged" is the greatest work of literature of all time. [laughter] and it went from one and all the way to the other. they did all kinds of polling in it was largely working-class people. that is to changed sides record now scott walker says

we will crack down on collective bargaining and people are furious. they have these gigantic protest 100,000 people and it is inspiring but it is people whose backs are to the ball those who look at the ruining of their way of life and a fairly desperate. a lot of them all learned i went out there when you're ago i went to the anti-walker reilly it is pro labor rally i have never seen something like that before. [laughter] they met at the vfw hall and marched around the tiny town a lot of solidarity. it is impressive but also people who are in deep deep trouble is what it is. let's hope that the

democrats can figure out how to bring those people back this time around. i hope they do. >> you have a terrific way of putting things. suppose democrats had taken on business or wall street with the same lack of apology that the republicans show to go after government. to what extent do those officials could harness some of danger that the tea party people have shown? let's assume that the bail-out unnecessary which could be argued. but would it make a difference of the democrat said this is terrible? i hate to do this but we

have to. have we taken that attitude? >> oh my god yes. [laughter] but i'm sorry, i keep going. >> the second part is what is the failure of the elected officials? >> rose 1/3 to really good questions. it is the colt of five partisanship and civility. coming from rise states and lose states and purple and he said the great things about bipartisanship i always assumed it was the or a man and i did not realize that is what he believed then. every presidential candidate says things like that. that is the right thing to say.

i am also bring my tin today and easily the greatest speaker of my a generation in his rhetorical gift is extraordinary and he is brilliant and defeated thing slightly differently he to be one of the great presidents i have no doubt. it still boggles my mind the way they played out the bailouts. but all give you a short taste of the bailouts how it could have been done differently. i decided to look into the history of the bailout. that is what i do. and i was surprised to find there were a lot of bailouts in 1930's. i was surprised because it was not mentioned during the financial crisis by the pundits themselves.

nobody ever talked about this. maybe three or four references in the entire crucial period. herbert hoover started to doubt the banks and it outrage people who pay the current bail-out did. incredible cronyism. the head of the agency and some day one day he quit and went home to chicago and a couple weeks later resurfaced as president of the bank and demanded a bailout and got one. [laughter] he got one. the public could not believe it. teachers in chicago had not been paid for two years in here he gets this lavish hand out. so franklin roosevelt how did you react? we will continue as the

policy? held no. he went after these guys one of his most famous beaches of the denunciation of the bailout. we're rewording the people at the top and that economic economy is starving. he did not stop them that did them differently to ensure the money it is astonishing in they did it deliberately to restructure so that to save were not in charge. >> a little mom and pop s&l. they go to the cattle auction houses and bail them out and go to the bank's and fire the management if they bailed them out. they did not like the banks they would start one out. they did amazing things to restructure the financial system. of course, now with the

rhetoric and fda c. glass-steagall that is what you do. that was never mentioned. i have got to shut up. >> don't shut up. [laughter] what makes be incredibly angry to ask the question is what has happened to the four people of this country? have the democrats lost their voice? i would take no because in the obama's speech it is pointed out he never mentions the word poverty and i will make the accusation again. in your book there is no mention of the bird poverty? to make is that right? that is because it is not a proper noun. [laughter] >> really. i feel there is a silent

ideas of the country and they have no voice whatsoever. >> come on. this is the land of the dollar. you have a voice when you have money. otherwise the democrats have dollars why don't they use it to give voice? >> you are asking me to get real cynical. [laughter] i will decline that invitation but the movement and power have to come from the working-class people who do have jobs and you will earn a living up of the poverty level but should be on the democratic side but increasingly moving to the republican party and that is where the big change has to

happen. >> >> does it make sense the mayor can labor movement to support. >> they'll promised to deliver it. where is it? another example that they cannot play the game. something i pointed out what is the matter with kansas? when their members of the union it is like something psychological happens they become more liberal. they understand the economic issues from a different perspective rather than the one you see on tv all the time and understand they have a voice or they can and and it changes for pro so

why not like roosevelt, have unions expand and have them everywhere? wine not encourage that as president? i am sorry i interrupted you. >> what is the alternative? >> it seems a reaction to the recent economic downturn but to react in a way to bring positive change. what is the alternative? >> there in the same tough spot of the two parties system is locked in written into law by would love it. the day we could have competitive third parties would be fantastic. i would love to see that. of the labor movement is in big trouble. they have been declining and the street is that the all-time low and republicans are gathering for the kill

shot ready to finish him off. that is a sobering prospect and frightening. at least now trump is getting in there and he is fiery not like back in the 1980's when they did not care prerelease they show some fight but it is there the same day there taken for granted and in the same way that i do and many people in this room feel they do as well. it is absolutely maddening. >> i think it is to organize. organize. organized. thank you for coming the hard-times swindle and the unlikely comeback of the [applause]

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