TL;DR

Thomas Frank’s The People, No should be required reading for VP Joe Biden’s campaign and anyone wanting to know how the Democratic party abdicated the working class. Highly recommended!

Review: The People, No

One of the pleasures of reading non-fiction is finding new authors directly in the text. Earlier this year, I read Matt Taibbi’s Hate, Inc (uneven but interesting) and Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan Metzl (excellent). Both referred to Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas as a book that tells the liberal political machine what they’re doing wrong. Seeing this referral in two books about vastly different subjects, it piqued my interest. So, when I saw Frank’s The People, No on NetGalley, I was curious. When I read the description, I was hooked. Frank looks at Populism and how it shifted from an egalitarian movement to be today’s movement of racists and extremists. This was a frustrating and enlightening book. I can’t think of the last time a book made me angry in one paragraph then had me agreeing in another with such regularity as The People, No.

Thomas Frank’s The People, No tracks the populist movement from its inception as a political party in the late 1800s to the twisting of its meaning in the 1950s to the adoption and twisting by Republicans in the1970s to the fake populism of the Trump campaign in 2016. The majority of the book is historical analysis hitting the important points in populism’s journey. Mr. Frank catalogues populism’s high points and lasting policies, such as the New Deal and fiat currency, for example. He also shows populism’s low points like McCarthyism, the academic reframing of populist actions, and Steve Bannon’s use of populism as a vehicle of rage. (Though, Frank says that McCarthyism wasn’t really populism.) It’s a fascinating journey through history showing how the term changed and why. He analyzes the elite’s responses to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the anti-populist historians of the 50s, and much more. The book ends with a discussion of populism as a vehicle of change. It’s well written, thorough, and frustrating.

What really frustrated me was that I didn’t really understand the point the book was making until the final chapters. From the beginning that Frank was attempting to rehabilitate the phrase populism, to change the popular usage of it. That is a goal of the book, but it’s also seems like a one man crusade against the way languages change. Why does it matter that the original usage is no longer relevant? The People, No is in reality another critique of the modern Democratic party. It’s yet another rage against identity politics, sort of. I thought this would be one of those ‘liberal’ book in the vein of Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi where there’s hand-waving and lip service in the form of ‘Republicans are bad, sure, but the real problem is the Democrats.’ Frank does blame the Democrats, but later in the book, he unloads on Republicans in a way that I found refreshing. But the purpose of rehabilitating the term is quite noble. Frank wants a political party that focuses on the people, not the elites (Democrats) or the rich (Republicans).

Elites versus the Masses

Mr. Frank is most effective showing how politics shifted from the concerns of the masses to that of the elites. Liberals squandered the heritage of FDR and the New Deal by looking to the ‘Educated Class’ instead of remaining with the working class. Partly, this book feels like an argument against expertise. I’m hesitant here because look at the incompetent administration that is currently in the White House. It abdicated leadership in face of Covid-19 and the response to George Floyd’s murder. Expertise has its place, and distrusting someone because they went to college to study politics or foreign policy is just the reversal of what Mr. Frank advocates for. He shows how the liberal elites stopped listening to the masses and began to listen to experts only. In this, he’s correct.

What was clear late in the book is that Mr. Frank is not anti-education. His discussion of the Little Blue Books shows that he wants education to be even more egalitarian than it is. Currently, higher education is big business, and historically it was limited to the upper classes. But higher education isn’t the only path to enlightenment. The Little Blue Books democratized knowledge. In a manner, these books were like the internet, only curated. Mr. Frank thinks education should not be limited to the ivory towers of academia. In this he is correct, but part of losing this education comes from the change in the media landscape.

The demise of local news media or alternate presses – newspapers, TV, – has had a profound effect on the country. The consolidation of media has replaced local concerns with national ones. While right wing media stars who make millions of dollars per year or who are scions of wealthy families rail against the East and West coast elites, the masses have no real representation in media. (Also, right wing media looks down upon its audience just the same as left wing media does.)

Race and Populism

Thomas Frank makes a good argument that populists are the working class and that it’s true inheritors are the labor movement. But like the labor movement and like Bernie Sander’s populist campaign in two democratic primaries, Mr. Frank believes that class struggle should supersede movements based around identity. Even more frustrating is that he discusses Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement during the Civil Rights era. Mr. Frank comes so close to understanding the problem. So close. In it, he correctly notes that MLK Jr began discussing labor and economic equality in the later years of his life. He even mentions that phase two of MLK’s plans was to unify labor across racial lines. I found this analysis of MLK’s plans for the labor movement quite enjoyable. It’s well sourced with powerful quotations, but it misses an essential element. Frank’s erroneous assumption is that phase one of MLK’s plans succeeded.

MLK’s goal was to elevate the African-American’s place in U.S. society to one of equality. Voting rights, spot-lighting police brutality, peaceful protests, and the Civil Rights Act are King’s legacy. His presence, his actions live on today. Unfortunately, the very things he worked for are still being fought over to this day. John Roberts’ politicization of the Supreme Court by gutting the Voting Rights Act has led to the GOP engaging in as much voter suppression as they can get away with, and these efforts target minorities with clear intent. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Martin Gugino show that police brutality is still a problem, and the violent confrontation of the police with the protesters are reminiscent of the brutality of the civil rights era. Peaceful protests for civil rights continue (though, the media lets violent rioting overshadow the peaceful protests). All the successes that MLK achieved are not set in stone. Complacency by the left has let the GOP chip away at the advances of MLK’s phase one. And many of the working class applaud the GOPs efforts to protect the racial hierarchy of the U.S. The question that Frank fails to answer is how to unite the working class across racial lines when the Republican elite has so effectively set each side against the other.

The reason that Frank doesn’t have an answer is because the populists didn’t have an answer. While parts of the Populist party did reach across racial lines in various places around the country, it failed to make in-roads with the Southern, white working class. (To be fair, Mr. Frank has an excellent discussion of this.) Populist movements that ignore racial issues and focus only on class issues – I’m looking at you Bernie Sanders – fail. The African-American voting block is loyal, and for a long time, they’ve propped up the Democratic party. Each year, their patience wears a little thinner, and they exert their presence more. Sanders candidacy failed for one reason and one reason only; his outreach to the black community was not convincing to its members. Focus only on class struggle ignores the very real racial disparities in each class and its structure.

Liberal Elites and Labor

Parts of the book, small parts, read like an old guy shaking his fists at those kids and their identity politics. He is, however, spot on by pointing out that the focus has shifted to identity politics at the cost of labor politics. For a political movement that seeks to be inclusive, the Democratic party ignores labor. Mr. Frank shows how the liberal elite expected the working class to fall in line but failed to notice that Republicans stepped into the void left by liberal elites. While the Republican party talks a good game for the working class, they fail to deliver any real change. But at least the Republican party acknowledges that these people have problems. The Democratic party takes the working class for granted, which is why it fractured. While Bernie’s campaign and supporters do not pay enough attention to race, their focus on labor is welcome and necessary. Bernie and his supporters have undoubtedly pushed the Democratic party to the left and back towards labor movements. Liberals have a difficult job ahead to determine how to integrate racial and labor policies to maximize both. And here’s the thing, racial equality means more labor opportunity, and advances in labor’s goals means more prosperity for minorities. But it must be both; focus on one and not the other alienates voters. Mr. Frank’s discussion of MLK provides a starting point. Liberal elites should take heed.

Populism Rehabilitated?

In The People, No, Frank attempts to return the term populism to its democratic origin. He wishes to undo the work of liberal elites and the Learned Class, such as Richard Hofstadter. Does he pull it off? I don’t think so. It’s a wonderful effort, and I enjoyed learning how the term was purposefully turned on its head. But that’s language, right? Words change over time, and definitions evolve. Is it fair? No, it isn’t. But this book is worth reading just to watch the evolution of the term from an egalitarian movement to a totalitarian one.

Populism and the Tea Party

There is a glaring omission from the book that undermines Frank’s effort at rehabilitation. He doesn’t discuss the Tea Party movement at all. For many of the negative populist movements in the past, Frank refers to those as led by demagogues and not true populism. Even if I accept this argument, no one could call the Tea Party movement the same as McCarthyism. The Tea Party movement was a loose coalition of conservative groups. Some were astroturfed; some were not. Because this movement had different goals than the populists of the 1800s, Frank must not consider it a populist movement. But it fits his populist definition because it was mainly groups of the working class who leaned right, who organized not at the behest of the GOP elite, but on their own prerogative. Leaving them out is fortunate for the author because the Tea Party was clearly a racist backlash against the first black president. Frank tries to show that populist movements are inclusive and not racist as the current usage implies. Discussion of the Tea Party would undermine this effort. Their policy goals weren’t to improve the working class; they feared the liberal elite’s handling of their healthcare. They peacefully protested, and through grassroots efforts, they organized. I would call the Tea Party a populist movement, but I can see how the author would say they’re not. However, I think he’s wrong.

Conclusion

Thomas Frank’s The People, No is an ambitious book. It seeks to correct the historical misunderstanding of populism’s meaning. While he fails to rehabilitate the phrase, he, once again, shows how the Left abdicated its historical position of supporting the working class for an infatuation with the expert, elitist class. The historical analysis and discussion is top notch, and while I don’t always agree with him, I respect his arguments. They made me think; they made me examine my own assumptions. Other than one glaring omission, this book makes a powerful argument for populism. The People, No should be required reading for VP Joe Biden, his campaign, and the entire DNC. While he didn’t win me over to the populist movement, Thomas Frank won me as a fan. I highly recommend The People, No.

Thomas Frank’s The People, No is available from Henry Holt and Co. on July 14th, 2020.

7.5 out of 10!

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book we need more now than ever. Forget what you learned in history class about William Jennings Bryan- this is the book you should be reading for the sake of the Republic.

This is an extremely important book that is also a blast to read. "Populism" is a word that drops from people's lips constantly, but Frank makes clear that some of the people who invoke it most confidently have literally no idea what it means. The arguments are convincing and the quotations and historical details go just deep enough for a book of this type--educational, but not overwhelming.

Thomas Frank has discovered that the term populism is fungible.

Since its invention in the late 1800s, when it meant the native intelligence of the populace at large to correct the ills and corruption of the USA, it has been hijacked numerous times in different eras. Like everything else in the universe, it doesn’t stay fixed for long.

Populism started out as anger over property taxes, injustice, corruption and inequality in the Gilded Age, all of which were actually worse in the 1890s than they are today. Groups and movements formed. Authors began exposing abuses. The country slowly came around to seeing things weren’t as the founders had envisioned. To boil it down to a phrase, populism valued human rights over property rights.

Inevitably, the rich fired back. They portrayed populists not as reasoned citizens with legitimate positions, but as ignorant hayseeds, unfit to even speak let alone govern. Governing was for the governing class, made up of the rich and the credentialed, not farmers and laborers, women or nonwhites. Academics in particular showed themselves to be narrowminded, selfish and power-mad in their denunciations of populism.

As time wore on, they assigned populism to ever more evil traits. It didn’t matter how crazy the attack was. The elites lashed out in all directions, fighting to keep their exclusive domain of governing and pillaging. They attached it to Nazism, for example, when until that point populism had always been considered a leftist disease. It had been associated with the rise of labor unions, not fascists.

But, despite the battering and the haranguing by newspapers and magazines against it, the movement had a profound effect. It resulted in FDR’s unprecedented four terms as president, in which he established regulating agencies, old age pensions, works projects and numerous other egalitarian institutions for all, much to the continuing horror of the establishment. It was, as Noam Chomsky posited of such movements, a “Democracy Scare”.

The scales tipped back in the 1960s, when populism began to fade. There were numerous reasons, most of which Frank does not go into. People became weary of conformity and equality. They wanted to break out, to move ahead of the pack, not nestle in it. The cult of the individual arose and government receded. Populism became a sneeringly bad concept, assigned to crackpot Argentine dictators and buffoonish Italian prime ministers of the extreme right.

Now, in the Trump era, the concept has mutated into something that makes no sense at all – a corrupt billionaire president making himself and his class even richer, while claiming to represent the long-aggrieved and deceived working class. Frank says “If this is populism, the word has truly come to mean nothing.”

Frank has definitely done the research. He has found long forgotten leaders, long forgotten tracts, and long forgotten events - and rehabilitated them. Even the book’s title, The People, No is a takeoff on a long forgotten 1936 booklength poem by populist Carl Sandburg – The People, Yes.

Today, the term populism is shackled to bigotry, white supremacy, the patriarchy, and nothing at all to do with its roots in human rights and equality. It makes the book a wild ride.

For some reason, this is the season for books on populism. This is at least the fourth one I’ve seen so far, and the second I have read. The other, Robert Putnam’s Upswing, puts populism in perspective instead of exhaustive examination. Putnam shows the record inequality of the Gilded Age, the remarkable pendulum swing to the New Deal, the rise of the individual and decline of protections - as waves. He asks, can America break free of this stranglehold again? Can populism (the original version) return? Frank, on the other hand, is total immersion in the rise and perversion of populism. Two books, each with important messages not to be overlooked.

David Wineberg