BONUS PODCAST

Why I Can’t Stand Rich People With Liberal Lawn Signs

In this bonus TNA episode, author Thomas Frank tells Molly Jong-Fast about how liberalism is going in the wrong direction—and what we can do to actually get sh*t done.

You know those lawn signs that say things like “Hate has no home here” or “Water is life?” Well, Thomas Frank, author of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism and the guest on this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, cannot stand those signs.

They’re well-intentioned, but he claims they’re missing a huge part of what it means to be a liberal, like supporting labor.

“It’s not a badge that you wear. It’s about reform. We’ve got to achieve those reforms,” he tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast. “There was always something about those signs that rubbed me the wrong way. And it took me a while to figure it out. But once I did, I started noticing this everywhere,” he says.

Did you know you can listen to The New Abnormal bonus episodes in your member dashboard or a podcast app? Click here to get set up and sign up for new episode email alerts here.

He continued: “The whole past of liberalism, which has to do with working people, forming unions, struggling for better conditions, struggling to be part of the middle class, all that's been erased.”

Frank, who also wrote a book called Listen, Liberal, is no stranger to criticizing them. He told Molly and producer Jesse Cannon that the modern form of this ideology has turned into what he calls “political scolding,” aka “You get to scold people lower than you on the social hierarchy because they didn’t go to school. They didn’t go to a fancy school and they don’t know the jargon or whatever it is.”

2020 BONUS EPISODES

2020 Archive: Bonus Episodes of The New Abnormal Podcast

And that, he says, is hindering liberals from getting things done.

Molly pushes back, stating that most liberals (aka lots of the lovely people who listen to this podcast,) don’t consider themselves to be snobby or elitist. Frank agrees there are good-willed Democrats, however, overall, we’re going about trying to enact change in the wrong way: “Just having a bunch of smart people in Washington, D.C., a bunch of technocrats, that’s not going to do it.”

Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

The Daily Beast

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.