PBC’s Last Interviews: Thomas Frank Talks About the Election, Democrats’ Flaws, and Why He’s Quitting Political Coverage

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Thomas Frank, author and historian, returns for a Last Interview, and talks about the election, what’s wrong with the Democrats, and his plans to end political commentary.Frank is the well-known author of What’s the Matter With Kansas, Listen, Liberal, and The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.

We open with discussion of Trump’s post-election machinations in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, and how Trump’s disruption in Georgia could leave him a loser and lead to defeat of the 2 GOP senators in the January 5 runoff.

We discuss the transformation of the Democratic Party to a pro-war, pro-intelligence party, and Frank’s brilliant analysis of the Democrats’ abandonment of poor working people in favor of white professional voters. Frank argues that this created the opening for Trump to attract working class voters–and suggests that they might just trade places.

We also talk about the “blame progressives” reactions of moderate Dems to the weak performance of Democratic House and Senate candidates.

Tom Frank explains how he has said what he has to say about politics, and his plans to shift his focus to other topics.