The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. Why Ronald Reagan is the second worst president

Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, Tom Delay, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld almost succeded in carrying out Ronald Reagan's plans to privatize most of the U.S. government. Richard Nixon began the program but couldn't carry it out due to the Watergate scandal. Poppy Bush continued the effort, but it was George Hoover Bush who did the most damage to the U.S. and the middle classes. The rich conservatives always cry "class war" when their plans are exposed. But, in fact, it is the rich conservatives who have been waging a class war against the middle and poor classes, and getting away with it. That's why Barack Obama and Joe Biden scare the crap out of them, fearing they won't be able to protect their elite class. ---BBB

The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
by Thomas Frank

About the Author

Thomas Frank is the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God. The founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper’s, Frank has received a Lannan award and been a guest columnist for The New York Times. He lives, of course, in Washington, D.C.
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Book Description

From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate"and lucrative"conservative misrule

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 Washington those politicians have given us.

Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters"the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff.

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. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.

Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet"and his most important.

Editorial Reviews

“a no-holds-barred exegesis on the naked cynicism of conservatism in America.”"Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Written with barbed wit and finely controlled anger, he skewers such juicy targets as libertarian strategist Grover Norquist and Michelle Malkin.”"Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Well-researched and witty… Provides a powerful liberal antidote to the high-volume rantings of Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and Fox News.”"Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Thomas Frank is back with another hunk of dynamite. The Wrecking Crew should monopolize political conversation this year.”"Salon.com

“In Thomas Frank, the American left has found its own Juvenal.”"The New York Times Book Review