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The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right
Henry Holt and Co.
January 2012
On Sale: January 3, 2012
224 pages
ISBN: 0805093699
EAN: 9780805093698
Kindle: B005FWPMV0
Paperback / e-Book
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Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Political
From the bestselling author of What's the Matter with
Kansas?, a wonderfully insightful and sardonic look at
why the worst economy since the 1930s has brought about the
revival of conservatism Economic catastrophe usually brings social protest and
demands for change—or at least it's supposed to. But when
Thomas Frank set out in 2009 to look for expressions of
American discontent, all he could find were loud demands
that the economic system be made even harsher on the
recession's victims and that society's traditional winners
receive even grander prizes. The American Right, which had
seemed moribund after the election of 2008, was strangely
reinvigorated by the arrival of hard times. The Tea Party
movement demanded not that we question the failed system but
that we reaffirm our commitment to it. Republicans in
Congress embarked on a bold strategy of total opposition to
the liberal state. And TV phenom Glenn Beck demonstrated the
commercial potential of heroic paranoia and the purest
libertarian economics. In Pity the Billionaire, Frank, the great chronicler
of American paradox, examines the peculiar mechanism by
which dire economic circumstances have delivered wildly
unexpected political results. Using firsthand reporting, a
deep knowledge of the American Right, and a wicked sense of
humor, he gives us the first full diagnosis of the cultural
malady that has transformed collapse into profit,
reconceived the Founding Fathers as heroes from an Ayn Rand
novel, and enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the
prosperous. The understanding Frank reaches is at once
startling, original, and profound.
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