When you take somebody's quote out of context, which happens all the time, nobody's ever going to go and do the research on their own and figure out that you got it wrong. Thomas Frank contextfigurequote Change image and share on social
Maybe that first, gigantic deficit the Reaganites piled up was an accident, just a combination of deluded 'supply side' tax cuts and a huge bag of good stuff for the Pentagon. But pretty quickly conservatives discovered that deficits, when done correctly, did something really cool: deficits defunded the Left. Thomas Frank accidentbagcombination share on social
Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution. Thomas Frank hallowjournalismpersecution Change image and share on social
Presidential legacies are valuable things, too valuable to be left up to historians. Thomas Frank historianleavelegacy Change image and share on social
Financial regulation is the next item on the political horizon, and it doesn't have to be the deathly dull wonk-battle that it sounds like. In fact, if the Democrats do their job, it can just as easily become a platform for addressing the greatest issues of them all. Thomas Frank addressbattledeathly share on social
Vibrancy is so universally desirable, so totemic in its powers, that even though we aren't sure what the word means, we know the quality it designates must be cultivated. The vibrant, we believe, is what makes certain cities flourish. Thomas Frank citycultivatedesignate share on social
People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about. Thomas Frank americanfundamentalinterest Change image and share on social
American conservatism depends on its continued dominance and even for its very existence on people never making connections about the world, connections that until recent were treated as obvious or self-evident everywhere on the planet. Thomas Frank americanconnectionconservatism share on social
We have become a society that can't self-correct, that can't address its obvious problems, that can't pull out of its nosedive. And so to our list of disasters let us add this fourth entry: we have entered an age of folly that - for all our Facebooking and the twittling tweedle-dee-tweets of the twitterati - we can't wake up from. Thomas Frank addaddressage share on social
Under the administration of George W. Bush, you will recall, federal spending grew pretty significantly. At the same time, the number of people directly employed by the federal government shrank. One of the factors that explained the difference was contracting. Thomas Frank administrationbushcontract share on social