Rendezvous with
Oblivion by Thomas Frank. Henry Holt and Company, 225 pages, $16.50.
Book Review by Ed Meek
Thomas Frank is a unique voice in nonfiction. He is both
witty and well-informed. In his new book of essays, he claims to deal with
“matters of grave import” with “a certain amount of levity.” The essays,
written between 2012 and 2018, appeared in Harper’s,
Salon, The Guardian, and Thomas Frank’s online publication, The Baffler. The book is divided into
sections covering inequality, higher education, journalism, the election of
Trump and the state of the Democratic Party. Frank maintains a breezy tone with
an underlying sense of both hope and cynicism.
He is a liberal, but he is critical of both the Democrats and the
Republicans. As the title implies, he
thinks we are in deep sh#t.
Frank’s specialty is focusing on developments in our country
that either don’t seem to make sense or are ridiculous, but fit into his
perspective that we’re out of joint. In a chapter on inequality, he deals with
the origin and growth of McMansions. He says everyone hates them but the newly
elite buy them anyway to cement their elite status. Another essay in the same
section talks about the lack of empathy rich people have for the rest of the
populace. “They are more rude and less
generous.” He writes about fast food enterprises that pay workers minimum wage
leading to those workers need for food stamps and Obamacare. That is to say, we
may pay less for our cheeseburgers, but we then have to pay taxes to help our
fast food employees survive. Meanwhile, their employers rake in millions. Fast
food is not as cheap as it appears to be.
In a section on higher education Frank looks at the mess
we’ve created with outrageous tuition fees, student debt and a system that is
now taught mostly by over-educated, underpaid part-time adjuncts. These same
universities are charging exorbitant fees to students. How did that happen?
Universities hire professors to do research and teach one class a semester
because the money and the funding is in research. Big name schools hire
celebrities like Elizabeth Warren to teach a class for 400K. They pay
Presidents a couple of million per annum to raise money. At the same time, they’ve
turned the campuses into sports clubs and spas replete with yoga, therapy and
multi-cultural food franchises. Yet Canada manages to keep the tuition
reasonable at its universities. Couldn’t we have affordable public universities
that focus on education and teaching without all the frills?
Sometimes Frank gets a little glib as when he attacks cities
that attempt imitate the Bilbao effect. He wants them to invest in essentials
like low cost housing and infrastructure rather than art. But is investing in
art and culture really a waste of money?
The last section focuses on politics and that is where Frank
is most on point. He has an interesting essay about the way establishment
journalists failed to take Bernie Sanders seriously. He laments the Democratic
Party’s move to centrism and their loss of support among blue collar workers.
Frank makes the case that Trump was the only candidate who addressed middle America’s
concerns about trade. That’s why Trump is sticking with tariffs even if they
hurt the economy. Trump also promised action on jobs, wages, schools and Social
Security. So did Bernie, but he was not the Democratic nominee. Frank accuses Democrats
of hubris, of being in love with the sound of their own voice. He warns us that
there are decent odds that Trump could be reelected in 2020 if Democrats don’t
get their act together.
There is a drawback to publishing collections of essays. The
result is somewhat fragmented with essays written in 2012 sounding dated
already. Nonetheless, Thomas Frank is always worth reading.
