The Wrecking Crew

Thomas Frank's political exposé The Wrecking Crew is a meaty, but completely biased account of how the conservative movement in America undermines the very foundation of democracy.

This is not a book for wealthy conservatives.

For everyone else, including conservatives who keep scratching their heads and trying to figure out why the conservative movement seems to routinely betray their most fundamental ideals, this book is not to be missed.

Frank reveals in the book how, over the course of about 60 years, the conservative political machine employed a tactic of publicly espousing one ideology while privately practicing a completely opposite one, an ideology that is in fact detrimental to the labor-class group of people attracted by the public face of the platform.

"By which I do not mean that conservatism abandoned laissez-faire, its raison d'être, but that from now on it would present itself to the world as a form of opposition to the established order, changing its shape as circumstances required. From now on it would be a movement not of bankers and manufacturers but of outsiders, of rebels, of freedom fighters, even."

The public rhetoric even goes so far (and, really, I'm sure you've heard this before) as to accuse any conservative who gets caught moving the private agenda forward of being a "bad conservative" or "not a real conservative." The conservative machine uses this propaganda to such an extent, that it accuses the head of its own state of being "not a real conservative" when public opion of George W. Bush is low, even though Bush has done more for the conservative agenda in the last 8 years than anyone could have possibly predicted.

"Refute this, and the wingers fall back  on another favorite bit of buncombe: that  their leaders weakened and failed because  once they got to Washington they had  "gone native"; they had gotten "cozy with  Beltway mores.""

But the contradictions don't end there. Oh, no. Anyone listening with even half an ear has heard the invective against big government, and yet, curiously, we've seen government grow under conservatives. Why is that?

"If we adopt the conservatives' own timeline and date their "revolution" to Reagan's election, it has been twenty-eight years. From that day to this, with only a few interruptions, conservatives have held either executive or legislative power over the very state that it is their first article of faith to despise. The big government that they rail against is, by and large, their government."

Frank goes on to uncover all the shady background in the conservative machine (consisting largely of Norquist, Abramoff, and Ollie North), and its role in undermining democracy in developing states, like South Africa:

"That the IFF was itself from  the very beginning a cynical effort to use  "the concept of freedom" to shore up a  racist prison state is merely another  whopping duplicity that we must wearily  add to conservatism's rapidly growing  account."

But the core of Frank's argument (taken largely from conservatives' own writings , newsletters, and operational guidelines) is that conservatives:

• Want to do away with democratic government entirely. Period.
• Are in favor of a "free market" in the sense of completely unregulated markets that are free to abuse workers, the environment, and anyone who does not hold the wealth.
• Have absolutely no obligation to play fair in political arenas, won't do so, and are cynically and unashamedly pleased to make strides toward completely destroying the left.

" When Putnam published Making  Democracy Work in 1993, he took it for  granted that a functioning, democratic  government is something everyone wanted..." 

"And people being pissed off at  government is the very ore of right-wing  discontent. Corrupt earmarks, inserted by  conservatives, lead to conservative victory. " 

In short: Even when the conservatives let their corrupt panties show, the result is to undermine and ultimately destroy democracy itself-- the very objective the conservatives really want to achieve. Once democracy is destroyed, the wealth-holders can do what they want without the labor class getting in the way and making them do things, like pay a living wage.