This is awesome!

Too bad TNR couldn't snag him. Rupert's money must have been persuasive. Maybe _Trouble With Kansas_ didn't sell enough..

The WSJ piece is great, and I agree with "unfailingly interesting," but 'Kansas' (and the 'Baffler' essays) not "fantastic" writing, imo.

I wondered what he was doing now that the Blue Jays cut him...

oh.... that's Frank Thomas, not Thomas Frank.

Actually, having read the Frank piece, I find it suffers from the same tonedeafness people on the left generally show about "elitism."  Frank thinks "elite" means "rich"--which of course it does in part--and concludes from that that it's ridiculous to call the relatively modestly endowed Obama an elite.  But to ordinary working Americans "elite" also means "exemption from doing 'real' work."  In this regard they're heirs to the Populists, whose basic distinction was not between rich and poor, but between "producers" and "nonproducing" parasites, who could be anyone from a hobo to J. P. Morgan--in the words of the Omaha Platform, a "tramp" or a "millionaire."  By this criterion, any member of the chattering classes--you guys, professors like myself--are part of the elite.  Moreover, one doesn't have to spend much time among one's fellow elites to conclude that they're also elitists--that they really do consider themselves superior to those who lack whatever gives them elite status: money if they're rich, education if they're chattering.  TBS, the brouhaha over "Bittergate" was a case of right-wing pots calling the left-wing kettles black.  But the fact remains that both the pots and the kettles are, in fact, black.  All the self-righteous denials they can muster doesn't change the fact that the left--and certainly Obama--has a problem with working-class white [and brown, BTW] America, and they need to do something about it.

"screw the poor working class, what have they done for us." Hillary Clinton, 1994.

By the way, where can I get a beer bong?

colablease, so is your problem one of tone, or of policy? SChip, EITC, are Democratic ideas, not Republican. If it were up to them EITC would be abolished (or as I heard one say, why get a rebate when there was no bate).

The Republicans have not delivered over the past 7 years, that is all that matters, and all that will matter come November.

blackton,

You can have one of mine!

"That as they return again to the culture war, what the soldiers on all sides are doing is talking about class without actually addressing the economic basis of the subject."  Frank

Colablease, I think you miss Frank's point, or perhaps misstate his emphasis.To talk about elitism without talking about class is lunacy, and a lunacy which is being masterfully exploited by Republicans.  The point is not necessarily that Obama is not an elitist, but one of degree:  people much more elitist  -- by virtue of income, heredity, and world-view -- escape criticism by appearing to be of the people.  

Populists also made distinctions between those born into wealth and those not. I think it a stretch to claim that Populists did not have a critique of great wealth In the 19th century.  To say that Obama would be considered a "parasite" back then doesn't account for a different economy and cultural landscape. He was not born into wealth, he hadn't really prospered with the "parasitic" class until he recently became a politician. And few people today would qualify for Populist praise as "producers."  (Surely you're not suggesting that the lowly paid service providers are "elitist" because they are "non-producers?"  They sit behind a computer and talk on the phone all day.)

Also, I think Frank is talking about the degree to which one's policy is elitist or not.  And Frank would surely agree wholeheartedly "that the left...has a problem with working-class white America, and they need to do something about it." That's precisely why he wrote  "What's the Matter with Kansas," this article, and others!

blackton,

Drinking Natural Light out of a funnel and hose on Saturday nights at the frat house for a few years before signing with the Wall Street firm is how college-fied Elites drink beer. Working-class, blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth, average Joe, plain folk, bowling, gun-owning, church-going, regular Americans shotgun their beer.  

The problem is also the way in which, on the one hand, we encourage ambition and advancement, and emphasize the upward mobility of American society (not looking so mobile today, unfortunately); but then, when people get to good universities and enter good professional careers, we accuse them of elitism.

Something is wrong in this equation.

I don't care that much for Frank and his political insights, but in the matchup of "Odd Op-Ed Columnist Out to Raise NY Media Market Profile" he mops the floor with Bill Kristol.

colablease is barking up the right tree. I would add that the terms of populist collectivism are negotiated on terms which 'elites' seemingly can't and ,worse,  don't want to understand. What an elite will describe as 'clinging' is the owners bedrock upon which to negotiate the world and stand as a counter to the parabola of narcissism of those who would self interestedly suggest that their thoughts and proclamations have unique and worthy station. ( ain't nothing new under the sun) You can call man made collectivity by a whole bunch of new and fancy names but it has always been the same old thing. Now Jesus may beckon and cajole and indict but he ain't gonna come with a sword in his hand and make me sign up. Men will do that armed with all manner of coercion. They'll flatter, promise and assault in the name of most anything but it is still the same.

Vanity begets vanity. While its domain is not exclusive and surely lives in the heart of everyone there is a parabolic correspondence to urban concentration and its celebration. That would include academia with all of its self interested but questionable usefulness. A light bulb is one thing. A social theory is another.

Well said, boxofrox!  I'm not sure if your comment is an example of linguistic elitism or some form of mental illness.

Mozier. Hey! My handle ain't boxofrox for nuthin. Jus soes ya know.

Now if the Times could only find a "conservative" op-ed columnist as interesting as Frank, we'd have two editorial sections worth reading. (Count me solidly in the Kirstol must go camp.) Noonan and Frank: it's almost enough to turn one into a Murdoch apologist. But not quite.

adam, if beer bongs are for the elites, and shotgunning certainly isn't, I think we can all agree that the crucial swing vote in Pennsylvania is the kegstand vote.

And, for the record, I did tequila shots, but without all the liberal hippie elitest salt, lime, and chaser nonsense.

What about those high-end microbrewery beers you can get at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's etc?  It looks like if you drink something that really helps a small, local (and American) operation stay in business, you're an elitist too!