Provocative, timely, and immensely rewarding reading.
The story of one of the longest-lasting negative metaphors in America politics: the limousine liberal.
In this rich, incisive book, Fraser (The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power, 2015, etc.) traces the complex history of a political metaphor intended to characterize hypocritical liberals who live self-satisfied lives of elitism and decadence while feigning deep concern for the poor. The term was first coined during John Lindsay’s 1969 New York mayoral campaign; his Democratic opponent, Mario Procaccino of the Bronx, described the election as a contest between affluent Manhattan reformers (who rode in limos, not subway cars) and the working-class outer boroughs. In their classic incarnation, limousine liberals are wealthy, socially connected graduates of tony prep schools and Ivy League colleges. In fact, writes Fraser, the term now signifies the lifestyle of diverse individuals, from actors Ben Affleck and George Clooney, who are “excoriated for the same conspicuously empty moralizing and self-righteous gesturing,” to Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, who supported Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Based largely in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, and with the New Yorker as their house organ, these liberals have spurred “an enduring politics of resentment directed against most of the major reforms of the last seventy-five years,” including civil rights, women’s liberation, and the welfare state. Indeed, the limousine liberal epithet has fueled right-wing populist politics in America. The author examines the long prehistory of animosity against cosmopolitan America, as evinced by the Scopes trial and the Ku Klux Klan and right-wing populists from Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin through today’s tea party. Noting that limousine liberals have been seen as threatening “the integrity of the family, racial hierarchy, and the virility of the homeland,” Fraser conveys the ferocity of America’s culture wars in his sharp observations, which often cut uncomfortably close to the bone: “Awash in white guilt, [limousine liberals] genuflect before impassioned journalists like Ta-Nehisi Coates.”
Provocative, timely, and immensely rewarding reading.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-465-05566-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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